Theatre of the Absurd

Postwar drama where waiting replaces plot and language fails: existence without meaning, staged as comedy.

Specifications & Metrics

era

c. 1950 – 1970

region

Paris and London

key figures

Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Jean Genet, Arthur Adamov, Harold Pinter

exemplar

Waiting for Godot (1953); The Bald Soprano (1950)

introduced

1950

Core Principles & Analysis

• Martin Esslin's 1961 study named and theorized the phenomenon.
• Waiting for Godot premiered in French in Paris in 1953.
• Its logic came from Camus's absurd, but its method was comic, not philosophical.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Theatre of the Absurd