This four-session course will look at key plays and authors of what has come to be called (notably by critic Martin Esslin) “the Theatre of the Absurd.” With each play, participants will develop their notion of what “the absurd,” as a concept and as a technique, might have meant in the crafting and reception of these plays, and what it could mean now. Should we think of “the absurd” as a philosophical concept (life is meaningless, with no metaphysical presence or authority) – to which the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre responded by insisting on human responsibility to create meaning? Should we think of “the absurd” as the realm of non-sense (incoherent thought and /or language; disassociation of what is said from what is seen) that captures how we often communicate? Or, is “the absurd” how we label behavior that is unacceptable or incomprehensible? Could “absurdist theatre” engage all of these definitions? The course will also ask why it is that all of these plays have seen recent and successful politicized productions, two (Rhinoceros and The Maids) being newly translated by the brilliant British dramatist Martin Crimp. Could it be that the absurd, seen in a certain light, speaks pointedly to our current historical moment of political crises and insecurity? Participants will be expected to have read the dramatic text BEFORE coming to the relevant session. THIRD SESSION: Ionesco, one of the earliest of the “absurdists” with, notably, the infamous Parisian production of The Bald Soprano (1950), railed against his contemporary Bertolt Brecht because of Brecht’s didacticism. In Rhinoceros (translated by Derek Prouse), Ionesco, nevertheless, put his own absurdist imagination to work in order to skewer authoritarianism. This session will question who or what the rhinoceri might mean in this play, and in the world, and what the process is that brings them into power. The session will also ask how one might represent them on stage.
New York City, NY; NYC