Characteristic features of the French theater of the absurd. Historical background for the emergence of the drama of the absurd

This new phenomenon in theatrical art made itself known in the early 1950s. plays “The Bald Singer” (1950) and “Waiting for Godot” (1952). The strange works of Eugene Ionesco and Samuel Beckett caused heated debate among critics and audiences. The “absurdists” were accused of extreme pessimism and the destruction of all the canons of the theater. However, already at the end of the 1960s. Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize for his play “Waiting for Godot,” and Ionesco’s “Thirst for Hunger” was performed at the Comédie Française. Why did the attitude of society in the theater of the absurd change?

It must be said that in the second half of the 20th century. The representatives of the theater of the absurd were not alone in their tragically pessimistic vision of the world. In the philosophical works of Sartre, in the literary experiments of Faulkner, Kafka, Camus, the idea was expressed with intense expression that modern man, who has lost faith in God, in the omnipotence of science or in progress, has “lost” the meaning of life and lives in anticipation of death. As Faulkner put it, “life is not movement, but a monotonous repetition of the same movements.” Such a “discovery” makes people experience a feeling of confusion and alienation, and realize the “absurdity” of their existence.

Thus, the ideas of the representatives of the new theatrical movement were fully consistent with the “spirit of the times.” At first, critics and viewers were “confused” by the deliberate combination of obvious tragedy with equally frank irony, which permeated the dramas of Beckett, Ionesco, Gennet, Pinter, and Arrabal. In addition, it seemed that the plays of the “absurdists” were impossible to stage on stage: they lacked the usual “full-fledged” images, there was no intelligible plot, no intelligible conflict, and the words were arranged in almost meaningless chains of phrases. These works were not at all suitable for realistic theater. But when experimental directors took on them, it turned out that the dramaturgy of the absurd provides rich opportunities for original stage solutions. Theatrical convention revealed a multiplicity of semantic layers in the plays of the “absurdists,” from the most tragic to the completely life-affirming, because in life, despair and hope are always nearby.

And onesco

Eugene Ionesco

French playwright of Romanian origin, one of the founders of the aesthetic movement of absurdism, a recognized classic of the theatrical avant-garde of the 20th century. Member of the French Academy.

Ionesco himself (born 1912) has repeatedly emphasized that he expresses an extremely tragic worldview. His plays “predict” the transformation of an entire community of people into rhinoceroses (“Rhinoceros” - 1960), tell about killers roaming among us (“The Disinterested Killer” - 1957), and depict unsafe aliens from anti-worlds (“Aerial Pedestrian” - 1963).

The playwright seeks to expose the danger of conformist consciousness, which absolutely depersonalizes a person. To achieve his artistic goal, Ionesco decisively destroys the seemingly harmonious logic of our thinking, parodying it. In the comedy “The Bald Singer” he reproduces the “automated”, “clichéd” worldview of his heroes, creates a phantasmagoric performance, exposing the absurdity of trivial phrases and banal judgments.

The famous director Peter Brook was one of the first to appreciate the stage possibilities of absurdist drama.

In “Victims of Duty” (1953) we are talking about people who consider themselves obligated to fulfill any demands of the state, to be certainly loyal citizens. The play is based on the technique of transforming images, changing character masks. This technique of external transformation of a person, which, however, does not change his essence, but only reveals his inner emptiness, is one of Ionesco’s favorites. He also uses it in one of his most famous plays, “Chairs” (1952). The heroine of the play, Semiramis, appears either as the old man’s wife or as his mother, while at the same time the old man himself is either a man, or a soldier, or “the marshal of this house,” or an orphan. The people Ionesco portrays are victims of life's utilitarian goals; they cannot go beyond the narrow circle of routine, they are blind from birth, crippled by cliches. The lack of spiritual aspirations makes them prisoners who do not want to be released.

B eckett

Samuel Beckett (1906-1989)

“To Beckett we owe perhaps the most impressive and most original dramatic works of our time.” Peter Brook

Irish writer, poet and playwright. Representative of modernism in literature. One of the founders of the theater of the absurd. He gained worldwide fame as the author of the play Waiting for Godot, one of the most significant works of world drama of the 20th century. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 1969. Having an Irish passport, he lived most of his life in Paris, writing in English and French.

Beckett, unlike Ionesco, is interested in a different range of issues. The main theme of his work is loneliness. Beckett's heroes need communication, kindred spirits, but due to their own structure (or the structure of the world?) they are deprived of these necessary things. All their lives they peer into their inner world, trying to correlate it with the surrounding reality, but their conclusions are inconsolable, and their existence is hopeless.

This is how Vladimir and Estragon appear before us, the characters in the tragicomedy “Waiting for Godot.” It was no coincidence that they found themselves on a deserted road, the only sign of which was a dried tree. This is a symbol of the heroes’ alienation from life. They try to remember the past, but the memories are vague and confused, they try to understand what led them to complete loneliness, but they are unable to do this. The dialogue and the accompanying actions are structured like a sad clownery. Vladimir and Estragon are surrounded by endless space, a huge world, but it seems closed to the heroes.

Beckett also uses the symbol of isolation in such plays as “The Game” (1954), “Happy Days” (1961), “Krapp’s Last Tape” (1957), thus revealing the incompatibility of his characters with the environment. “Nobody comes, nothing happens” - this phrase from “Waiting for Godot” becomes the leitmotif of Beckett’s dramaturgy, which tells about a man who has lost his life guidelines and turned almost into a phantom. The playwright's characters themselves are not entirely sure that they still exist. Noteworthy is the order Vladimir and Estragon give to the boy sent by Godot: “Tell him that you saw us.”

Unlike Ionesco or Beckett, Mrozek prefers an almost realistic manner of constructing dramatic action.

An important feature of Beckett's artistic method is the combination of poetry with banality. The playwright either lifts the viewer to the heights of the struggle of the human spirit, or plunges into the abyss of the base, and sometimes crudely physiological.

Beckett's plays are always mysterious: they require sophisticated stage interpretations, so the playwright embodied some of his works on stage personally. Thus, the mini-tragedy “The Sound of Steps” was staged by the author in West Berlin. A special place in Beckett’s work is occupied by the miniature “Dénouement” (1982), written especially for the famous actor J.-L. Barro. In it, the director's assistant prepares a performer for a role in one of Beckett's plays. He still won't say a word.

woman

To his wife: “I never reproduced life, but life itself involuntarily gave birth to me or highlighted, if they already existed in my soul, images that I then tried to convey through characters or events.”

Jean Genet (1910-1986). French writer, poet and playwright whose work is controversial. The main characters of his works were thieves, murderers, prostitutes, pimps, smugglers and other inhabitants of the social bottom.

The most extravagant of the representatives of the theater of the absurd is Jean Genet. As a ten-year-old boy, he was convicted of theft and ended up in a correctional colony, where, in his own words, he enthusiastically joined the world of vice and crime. Later he served in the Foreign Legion and wandered around the ports of Europe. In 1942 he went to prison, where he wrote the book “Our Lady of Flowers”; in 1948 he was sentenced to lifelong exile in a colony. However, many cultural figures stood up for the writer, already well-known by that time, and he was pardoned.

Genet’s main task was to challenge bourgeois society, which he fully succeeded in achieving with talented but scandalously shocking plays, which included “The Maids” (1947), “The Balcony” (1956), “The Negroes” (1958) and “Screens.” ” (1961).

J.-P. Sartre supported the “absurdists”, wrote reviews of their plays, and he owns a book about the life and work of Genet.

“The Maids” is one of Genet’s most famous dramatic works. It tells how the sisters Solange and Claire, rescued by their mistress, decide to take possession of her property by poisoning the mistress. To this end, they slander her friend, ensuring that he goes to prison. But Monsieur is unexpectedly released, and the treacherous sisters are exposed. Although the plot “suggests” a melodramatic development of the action, “The Maids” is built in a completely different, grotesque key. In the absence of Madame, the sisters take turns portraying her, transforming themselves so much into their mistress that they forget about themselves, temporarily freeing themselves from the unenviable role they play in reality. This is a play about life in which dream and reality collide in an ugly way. In Genet’s dramaturgy, as a rule, completely fictitious, incredible events are presented, in which the real world familiar to us is bizarrely modified and distorted, which allows the author to express his attitude towards it.

A rrabal and Pinter

Fernando Arrabal

Spanish screenwriter, playwright, film director, actor, novelist and poet. Lives in France since 1955.

Spanish playwright Fernando Arrabal (b. 1932) was fascinated by Calderon and Brecht in his youth, and was significantly influenced by these authors. His first play, “Picnic,” was staged in 1959 in Paris. The heroes of the play, Sapo and Sepo, are soldiers of two armies at war with each other. Sapo takes Sepo prisoner. It turns out that the soldiers have a lot in common.

Both do not want to kill anyone, both are ignorant of military affairs, and participation in battles has not separated them from the habits of peaceful life: one knits a sweater in between firefights, and the other makes rag flowers. Ultimately, the heroes come to the conclusion that all the other soldiers also do not want to fight, and they must say this out loud and go home. Inspired, they dance to cheerful music, but at that moment a machine-gun burst cuts them down, depriving them of the opportunity to carry out their plan. The absurdity of the play's situation is deepened by the fact that it also involves Sapo's parents, who suddenly arrived at the front to visit their son.

Arrabal's work is characterized by the contrast between the deliberate childishness of his heroes and the cruelty of the circumstances in which they have to exist. Some of the playwright’s most famous works include “The Two Executioners” (1956), “First Communion” (1966), “The Garden of Pleasure” (1969, “The Inquisition” (1982).

Harold Pinter

English playwright, poet, director, actor, public figure. One of the most influential British playwrights of his time. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2005.

The artistic method of Harold Pinter (1930 – 2008), author of the plays “The Birthday Party” (1957), “The Dumb Waiter” (1957), “The Watchman” (1960), “Landscape” (1969), is close to expressionism. His dark tragicomedies are populated by mysterious characters whose conversations parody ordinary forms of human communication. The plot and construction of the plays are in conflict with their apparent plausibility. Looking at the bourgeois world as if through a magnifying glass, Pinter uniquely depicts the suffering of people who find themselves on the margins of life.

Source – Large Illustrated ENCYCLOPEDIA

Theater of the Absurd – Ionesco, Beckett, Genet, Arrabal and Pinter updated: August 31, 2017 by: website

32. Features of the theater of the absurd: origins, representatives, features of dramatic structure.

Works in the list related to the theater of the absurd:

Beckett: "Waiting for Godot"

Ionesco: "Rhinos"

Given the pointlessness of the plot retelling of these plays, they are actually easier to read. Below is a retelling of the plot, but this may not help.

Other representatives:

Kafka: in every introductory article about Kafka, the word “absurd” appears at least once, but Moskvina, for example, separates Kafka’s work and absurdity due to the emphasized logic of events occurring in Kafka’s worlds. Camus also shares Kafka and the absurd due to the fact that his work still contains some glimmers of hope, which is unacceptable for absurdity in Camus’s understanding.

Stoppard: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is a prime example of absurdist tragicomedy.

Vvedensky and Kharms: domestic representatives. I don’t think they should be cited as examples just like that, given that we have a course on foreign literature, but if asked, mention them so as not to lose face.

Temporary structure:

1843 - Kierkegaard's "Fear and Trembling" was written

1914-1918 - First World War

1916 - emergence of Dadaism

1917 - in the manifesto of the "New Spirit" Guillaume Apollinaire introduces the term "surrealism"

1939-1945 - World War II

1942 - publication of the essay "The Myth of Sisyphus" by Camus

1951 - production of “The Bald Singer” by Ionesco

1952 - production of Ionesco's "Chairs"

1953 - production of "Victims of Debt" by Ionesco

1953 - production of Beckett's "Waiting for Godot"

1960 - production of "Rhinoceros" by Ionesco

1962 - publication of the book "Theater of the Absurd" by theater critic Martin Esslin

The term "absurd":

Camus: “A world that can be explained, even in the worst way, is a world that is familiar to us. But if the universe is suddenly deprived of both illusions and knowledge, a person becomes an outsider in it. A person is exiled forever, because he is deprived of both the memory of his lost fatherland and hopes for the promised land. Strictly speaking, the feeling of absurdity is this discord between a person and his life, an actor and the scenery."

"Man is faced with the irrationality of the world. He feels that he desires happiness and rationality. The absurdity is born in this clash between the calling of man and the unreasonable silence of the world."

“If I accuse an innocent person of a terrible crime, if I tell a respectable person that he lusts after his own sister, then they will answer me that this is absurd. [...] A respectable person points out the antinomy between the act that I attribute to him and the principles throughout his life. “It’s absurd” means “it’s impossible,” and also “it’s contradictory.” If a man armed with a knife attacks a group of machine gunners, I consider his action absurd. But it is only so because of the disproportion between intention and reality , because of the contradiction between real forces and the stated goal. [...] Therefore, I have every reason to say that the feeling of absurdity is not born from a simple examination of a fact or impression, but rushes in along with a comparison of the actual state of affairs with some kind of reality ", by comparing an action with the world lying beyond this action. Essentially, absurdity is a split. It is not in any of the elements being compared. It is born in their collision."

Ionesco: “I still don’t really know what the word “absurd” means, except in those cases where it asks about the absurd; and I repeat that those who are not surprised that they exist, who do not ask themselves questions about being, who believe that everything is normal, natural, while the world touches the supernatural, these people are flawed. [...] But the ability to be surprised will return, the question of the absurdity of this world cannot but arise, even if there is no answer to it. [... ] Let us try to ascend, at least mentally, to that which is not subject to decay, to the real, that is, to the sacred, and to ritual, which expresses this sacred - and which can be found without artistic creativity."

"The absurd is something devoid of purpose... Torn away from his religious, metaphysical and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions are meaningless, absurd, useless."

Esslin: “A good play has a skillfully constructed plot, in absurd plays there is no plot and plot; a good play is valued for its characters and motivations, in absurd plays the characters are not recognizable, the characters are perceived almost like puppets; in a good play the intrigue is justified, which is masterfully carried out in ultimately resolved, absurd plays often have neither beginning nor end; a good play is a mirror of nature and represents its era in subtle sketches, absurd plays reflect dreams and nightmares; good plays are distinguished by precise dialogues and witty remarks, absurd plays often present incoherent babble. "

Defining the term "absurd" specifically, Esslin cites Camus ("discord between actor and scenery") and Ionesco ("something without purpose").

Moskvina: judging by the lecture on Proust and Kafka, she perceives absurdity primarily as something illogical and irrational.

General provisions

Theater of the Absurd is a type of modern drama based on the concept of total alienation of man from the physical and social environment. These types of plays first appeared in the early 1950s in France and then spread throughout Western Europe and the United States.

The idea of ​​the absurdity of the human lot in a hostile or indifferent world was first developed by A. Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus), who was strongly influenced by S. Kierkegaard, F. Kafka and F. M. Dostoevsky. The roots of the theater of the absurd can be identified in the theoretical and practical activities of representatives of such aesthetic movements of the early 20th century as Dadaism and surrealism, and in clowning, music hall, and the comedies of Charles Chaplin.

The emergence of a new drama was discussed after the Paris premieres of The Bald Soprano (1950) by Ionesco and Waiting for Godot (1953) by Beckett. It is significant that in “The Bald Singer” the singer herself does not appear, but on stage there are two married couples whose inconsistent, cliché-filled speech reflects the absurdity of a world in which language impedes communication rather than facilitates it. In Beckett's play, two tramps wait on the road for a certain Godot, who never appears. In a tragicomic atmosphere of loss and alienation, these two anti-heroes recall incoherent fragments of their past lives, experiencing an unconscious sense of danger.

The art of the absurd is a modernist movement that strives to create an absurd world as a reflection of the real world; for this purpose, naturalistic copies of real life were built chaotically without any connection.

The basis of dramaturgy was the destruction of dramatic material. The plays lack local and historical specificity. The action of a significant part of the plays of the theater of the absurd takes place in small spaces, rooms, apartments, completely isolated from the outside world. The temporal sequence of events is being destroyed. Thus, in Ionesco’s play “The Bald Singer” (1949), 4 years after death the corpse turns out to be warm, and it is buried six months after death. The two acts of the play "Waiting for Godot" (1952) are separated by night, and "maybe 50 years." The characters in the play themselves do not know this.

The lack of historical specificity and temporary chaos are complemented by a violation of logic in the dialogues. The dialogue is reduced, outside the partner. The heroes don't hear each other.

The very name of the plays “The Bald Singer” is absurd: in this “anti-drama” the bald singer not only does not appear, but is not even mentioned.

They shared with existentialism the idea of ​​the world as chaos; any collision of a person with the world gives rise to conflict and distrust of communication.

They bring the principle to artistic expression - they show the absurd by means of the absurd.

The absurdists borrowed nonsense and the combination of incompatible things from the surrealists and transferred these techniques to the stage. With scrupulous precision, S. Dali painted the Venus de Milo in one of his paintings. With less care he depicts the drawers located on her body. Each of the details is similar and intelligible. The combination of Venus’s torso with drawers deprives the picture of any logic.

Parts of sentences are in an absurd combination.

The Theater of the Absurd wanted to show the real world.

A person in the theater of the absurd is incapable of action. The heroes of works of absurd art cannot complete a single action, are unable to carry out a single plan.

The personalities in the plays are leveled, devoid of individuality, and look like mechanisms. Often the heroes of plays have the same names; according to the figures of the theater of the absurd, people are indistinguishable from each other.

The heroes are absurd characters, they know nothing about the world and themselves, déclassé elements, or philistines, there are no heroes who have ideals and see the meaning of life. People are doomed to exist in an incomprehensible and unchanging world of chaos and absurdity.

In an effort to emphasize the atmosphere of ugliness and pathology that surrounds a person, Beckett depicts anti-aestheticism and the insanity of life in his plays. In order to arouse the disgust of readers and spectators towards the heroes of the play "Waiting for Gordo", Beckett persistently repeats that one of them "has stinking breath" and the other "has stinking feet."

Numerous plays of the theater of the absurd of the first decade (1949-1958) are determined not by the plot of the works, but by the general atmosphere of idealism and chaos recreated on stage.

The term “Theater of the Absurd” was introduced by Esslin in an essay of the same name: it was he who saw the similarities between Camus’s absurdist philosophy expressed in “The Myth of Sisyphus” and “The Rebel Man” and the plays of Ionesco, Beckett, Adamov and Genet.

Ionesco on the theater of the absurd

“It seems to me that half of the theatrical works created before us are absurd to the extent that they are, for example, comical; after all, comedy is absurd. And it seems to me that the progenitor of this theater, its great ancestor, could be Shakespeare, who makes his hero to say: “The world is a story told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, devoid of all meaning and meaning.” It can probably be said that the theater of the absurd goes back to even more distant times and that Oedipus was also an absurd character, since what happened to him was absurd, but with one difference; Oedipus broke the laws unconsciously and was punished for breaking them. But laws and norms existed. Even if they were violated. In our theater, the characters, it seems, what they don't cling to, and if I'm allowed to quote myself, then the old people in my play "Chairs" are in a world without laws and norms, without rules and transcendental concepts. I wanted to show the same thing in a more cheerful spirit in a play like " Bald singer", for example.

It seems to me that the word “absurd” is too strong: it is impossible to call anything absurd if there is no clear idea of ​​what is not absurd, if you do not know the meaning of what is not absurd. But I can argue that the characters in “The Chairs” were looking for a meaning that they did not find, looking for the law, looking for a higher form of behavior, looking for what can only be called divinity.

The theater of the absurd was also a theater of struggle - that is what it was for me - against the bourgeois theater, which it sometimes parodied, and against the realistic theater. I argued and maintain that reality is not realistic, and I criticized the realistic, socialist realist, Brechtian theater and fought against it. I have already said that realism is not reality, that realism is a theatrical school that views reality in a certain way, just like romanticism or surrealism. In the bourgeois theater I didn’t like that he was concerned with trifles: business, economics, politics, adultery, entertainment in the Pascalian sense of the word. It can probably be said that the theater of adultery in the 19th and early 20th centuries originates from Racine, with the only huge difference that when Racine died from adultery, he killed. But for post-Russian authors this is nothing more than a trifle. Another disadvantage of realistic theater is that it is ideological, that is, to some extent, deceitful, dishonest theater. Not only because it is unknown what reality is, not only because not a single person of science is able to say what “real” means, but also because a realistic author sets himself the task of proving something, of recruiting people, viewers , readers on behalf of the ideology that the author wants to convince us of, but which does not become any more true. Any realistic theater is fraudulent theater, even and especially if the author is sincere. True sincerity comes from the most distant, from the depths of the irrational, unconscious. Talking about oneself is much more convincing and truthful than talking about others, than involving people in always controversial political associations. When I talk about myself, I talk about everyone. A real poet does not lie, does not dissemble, does not want to recruit anyone, because a real poet does not deceive, but invents, and this is completely different.

Characters without metaphysical roots, perhaps in search of a forgotten center, a fulcrum that lies outside of them. Beckett wrote about the same thing, more coldly, perhaps more clairvoyantly. We wanted to bring to the stage and show the audience the very existential existence of man in its fullness, integrity, in its deep tragedy, his fate, that is, awareness of the absurdity of the world. The same story "told by an idiot"

Esslin on the theater of the absurd

“It is worth emphasizing that the playwrights whose plays are considered under the general title of “theater of the absurd” do not represent any self-proclaimed or self-sufficient school. On the contrary, each of these writers is an individual who considers himself lonely, an outsider, cut off and isolated from the world, existing in his own sphere. Each of them has his own idea of ​​form and content; his own roots, origins, experience. If they are also understandable and, despite everything, have in common with others, this is explained by the fact that their creativity is a truthful mirror, reflecting anxieties, feelings and thoughts of an important aspect of the life of the modern West.

The distinctive feature of this trend is that rejected by past centuries, considered unnecessary and discredited, our century has dismissed it as cheap and childish illusions. The decline of religion was masked until the end of World War II by a surrogate of faith in progress, nationalism and other totalitarian delusions. The war shattered all this. In 1942, Albert Camus calmly posed the question of why, if life has lost its meaning, a person no longer sees a way out in suicide.

The feeling of metaphysical suffering and the absurdity of the human lot in general terms is the theme of the plays of Beckett, Adamov, Ionesco, Genet [...]. But this is not the only theme of the theater of the absurd. Such a perception of the meaninglessness of life, rejection of the devaluation of ideals, purity, and determination is the theme of the plays of Giraudoux, Anouilh, Salacre, Sartre and, of course, Camus. But these playwrights differ significantly from the playwrights of the absurd in their sense of the irrationalism of the human condition in a very clear and logically argued form. The theater of the absurd seeks to express the meaninglessness of life and the impossibility of a rational approach to this by openly rejecting rational schemes of discursive ideas. While Sartre or Camus put new content into old forms, the theater of the absurd takes a step forward in the desire to achieve the unity of basic ideas and forms of expression. In a sense, in the theater of Sartre and Camus, artistic expression is not adequate to their philosophy, differing from the method used by the theater of the absurd.

The theater of the absurd strives for a radical devaluation of language: poetry must be born from concrete material images of the scene itself. In this concept, the element of language plays an important but subordinate role, but what happens on and off stage often contradicts the words spoken by the characters. [...]

The Theater of the Absurd is part of the “anti-literary” movement of our time, expressed in abstract painting, which abandoned “literary” elements in paintings; in the “new French novel”, based on objective representation and abandoning empathy and anthropomorphism."

Esslin on Beckett's Waiting for Godot

"Beckett's plays require careful approach to avoid pitfalls that simplify their meaning. This does not mean that we cannot undertake careful research, isolating series of images and themes, trying to understand their structural basis. Results will be easier to achieve by following the author's idea, knowing that you can get, if not answers to his questions, then at least an understanding of the questions he asks.

Waiting for Godot has no plot; a static situation is studied. "Nothing happens, no one comes, no one leaves, it's scary."

On a country road, near a tree, two old tramps Vladimir and Estragon are waiting. At the beginning of the first act there is an open situation. At the end of the first act, they are informed that Monsieur Godot, whom they believe they are supposed to meet, cannot come, but he will definitely come tomorrow. The second act repeats this situation. The same boy comes and reports the same thing.

The play contains an element of coarse, base humor, characteristic of the music hall or circus tradition: Estragon loses his trousers; an episode-long gag with three hats that the tramps put on, take off, and pass on to each other, creating endless confusion, and the abundance of this confusion causes laughter. The author of a talented dissertation on Beckett, Niklaus Gessner, lists about forty-five remarks indicating that one of the characters is losing the vertical position that symbolizes human dignity.

Many ingenious attempts have been made to establish the etymology of the name Godot, to find out whether Beckett's intention was conscious or unconscious to make him the object of the search for Vladimir and Estragon. It can be assumed that Godot is a weakened form of God, a diminutive name by analogy of Pierre - Pierrot, Charles - Charlot, plus an association with the image of Charlie Chaplin, his little man, who in France is called Charlot; his bowler hat is worn by all four characters in the play.

Whether Godot signifies the intervention of supernatural forces, or whether he symbolizes the mythical basis of existence, and his arrival is awaited for the situation to change, or whether he combines both, - in any case, his role is secondary. The theme of the play is not Godot, but the act of waiting as a characteristic aspect of the human condition. Throughout our lives we wait for something, and Godot is the object of our waiting, be it an event or a thing, or a person, or death. Moreover, in the act of waiting, the passage of time is felt in its purest, most visual form. If we are active, then we tend to forget about the passage of time, not paying attention to it, but if we are passive, then we are faced with the action of time. As Beckett writes in his study of Proust: “This is not an escape from hours and days. Neither from tomorrow, nor from yesterday, for yesterday we were deformed or deformed by us. ... Yesterday is not a milestone that we have passed, but a sign on the beaten path of years, our hopeless fate, difficult and dangerous, it sits inside us... We not only get more tired of every yesterday, we become different and by no means more desperate than we were.” The running of time confronts us with the main problem of existence: the nature of our “I,” a subject constantly changing in time, in perpetual motion, and therefore always beyond our control. "Man can perceive reality only as a retrospective hypothesis. A slow, dull, monochrome process of pouring into a vessel containing the fluid of the past time, multi-colored, driven by the phenomenon of this time, is constantly going on in him."

Waiting is the recognition through experience of the action of time, which is constantly changing. Moreover, since nothing really happens, the passage of time is just an illusion. The incessant energy of time speaks against itself, it is aimless and therefore ineffective and meaningless. The more things change, the more they remain the same. And this is the terrifying immutability of the world. “The tears of the world are a constant quantity. If someone starts crying, it means that somewhere someone has stopped crying.” One day is like another, and we die as if we were never born. Pozzo speaks about this in his last explosive monologue: “How much can you mock, asking questions about damned time?.. It’s not enough for you that... every day is like the other, one fine day he became numb, and another fine day I went blind, and such a wonderful day will come when we will all go deaf, and on some wonderful day we were born, and the day will come when we will die, and there will be another day, exactly the same, and after that another, the same... They give birth right on the graves “The day has just dawned, and now it’s night again.”

Soon Vladimir agrees with this: “They give birth in agony right on the graves. And below, in the hole, the gravedigger is already preparing his shovel.”

When Beckett was asked what the theme of Waiting for Godot was, he sometimes quoted St. Augustine: "Augustine has a wonderful saying. I would like to quote it in Latin. It sounds better in Latin than in English: 'Don't lose hope. One of the "The robbers were saved. Do not take into account that the other was condemned to eternal torment." Sometimes Beckett added: "I am interested in certain ideas, even if I do not believe in them... There is a stunning image in this saying. It has an effect."

A characteristic feature of the play is the assumption that the best way out of the situation of the tramps - and they express this - is to prefer suicide to waiting for Godot. “We thought about this when the world was young, in the nineties. ... Hold hands and jump off the Eiffel Tower among the first. Then we were still quite respectable. 60 But now it’s too late, they won’t even let us in.” Committing suicide is their favorite solution, impossible due to their incompetence and lack of suicide instruments. The fact that suicide fails every time, Vladimir and Estragon explain by expectation or feign this expectation. "I wish I knew what he would suggest. Then we would know whether to do it or not." The hope of salvation may simply be a way to avoid the suffering and pain generated by contemplating the human condition. This is an amazing parallel between the existentialist philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre and the creative intuition of Beckett, who never consciously expressed existentialist views. If for Beckett, as for Sartre, the moral obligation of man is to face life, realizing that the essence of existence is nothing, and freedom and the need to constantly create oneself make one choice after another, then Godot, in the terminology Sartre, may well personify “bad faith”: “The first act of bad faith consists in evading what is impossible to evade, in evading evasion.”

Despite possible parallels, we should not go too far in trying to place Beckett in any school of thought. The unusualness and splendor of “Waiting for Godot” is that the play suggests many interpretations from philosophical, religious, and psychological positions. In addition, this is a poem about time, the fragility and mystery of life, the paradox of variability and stability, necessity and absurdity."

Esslin on Ionesco's "Rhinoceros"

“The world recognition of Ionesco as a central figure in the theater of the absurd began with Rhinoceros.

The hero of "Rhinoceros" is Beranger.

Béranger in Rhinoceros works in the production department of a legal literature publishing house, as Ionesco also worked at one time. He is in love with his colleague Mademoiselle Desi. Her name is reminiscent of Beranger's first love, Dani. He has a friend Jean. On Sunday morning they saw, or believe they saw, one, or perhaps two, rhinoceroses rushing down the main street of the town. Gradually, there are more and more rhinoceroses. The inhabitants have become infected with a mysterious disease, rhinoceros, which not only turns them into rhinoceroses, but gives rise to the desire to turn into these strong, aggressive and thick-skinned animals. In the finale, only Beranger and Desi remain human in the entire city. But Desi cannot resist the temptation to become like everyone else. Bérenger is left alone; the last man, he courageously declares that he will not capitulate.

"Rhinoceros" is known to reflect Ionesco's feelings before leaving Romania in 1938, as more and more of his acquaintances joined the fascist Iron Guard movement. He said: “As always, I indulged in my thoughts. All my life I remembered how stunned I was by the ability to manipulate opinion, its instant evolution, the power of its infection, turning into an epidemic. People allow themselves to unexpectedly accept a new religion, doctrine, surrender to fanaticism. ... At such moments we become witnesses of a real mental mutation. I don’t know if you have noticed, if people do not share your views, and you cease to understand them, and they cease to understand you, it seems that you are confronting monsters, for example rhinoceroses. They mix sincerity with cruelty. They will kill you with a clear conscience. Over the past quarter century, history has shown that people not only became like rhinoceroses, but turned into them."

At the premiere in Düsseldorf at the theater Schauspielhaus The German public immediately recognized the arguments of the characters who believed that they should follow the general trend: the audience had heard or themselves used similar arguments at a time when the German people could not resist the temptations of Hitler. Some characters in the play wished to become thick-skinned: they were delighted by the brutal strength and simplicity that arose from the suppression of too weak human feelings. Others did this because it would be possible to turn rhinoceroses back into humans if one learned to understand their way of thinking. She was also a group, especially Desi, who simply could not afford to be different from the majority. Rhinoceros is not only a disease called totalitarianism, characteristic of the right and left, but also a desire for conformity. "Rhinoceros" is a witty play. It is full of brilliant effects, and differs from most of Ionesco's plays in that it gives the impression of being understandable. London Times published a review entitled “Ionesco’s play is understandable to everyone.”

But is it really that easy to understand? Bernard Fransuel in CahiersduCollé gedePataphysique noted in a witty article that Bérenger’s final confession and his previous thoughts about the superiority of people over rhinoceroses are strangely reminiscent of cries of “Long live the white race!” in the plays "The Future is in Eggs" and "Victims of Debt". If we examine the logical train of thought of Bérenger in a conversation with his friend Dudard, we will see that he defends his desire to remain a man with the same outbursts instinctive feelings that he condemns in rhinoceroses, and when he notices his mistake, he only corrects himself by replacing "instinct" with intuition. Moreover, at the very end, Beranger bitterly regrets that it seems to him that he cannot turn into a rhinoceros! His latest bold statement of faith in humanism is just the fox's contempt for grapes that are too green. Bérenger's farcical and tragicomic challenge is far from genuine heroism, and the final meaning of the play is not as clear as some critics have found. The play shows the absurdity of challenge to the same extent as the absurdity of conformity, the tragedy of an individualist who cannot merge with the happy mass of people who are not as sensitive as him, the feeling of an artist who feels like a pariah. These are the themes of Kafka and Thomas Mann. To a certain extent, Bérenger's final situation is reminiscent of the victim of another metamorphosis - Gregor Samsa in Kafka's Metamorphosis. Samsa turns into a huge insect, the others do not change; Bérenger's last man finds himself in the same situation as Samsa, for now it is normal to turn into a rhinoceros, but to remain human is monstrous. In his final monologue, Bérenger regrets having white, soft skin and dreams of rough, dark green, shell-like skin. "Only I am the only monster, only me!" - he shouts until he finally decides to remain human.

"Rhinoceros" is a pamphlet against conformity and insensitivity (the latter is definitely present in the play), a mockery of the individualist who merely makes a sacrifice to necessity, emphasizing the superiority of his finely organized artistic nature. Where the play goes beyond propaganda simplicity, it turns into proof of the fatal confusion and absurdity of human life. And only a performance that reveals the duality of Bérenger’s position in the finale can give a complete picture of the play."

Watching the performances of some playwrights, for example, Eugene Ionesco, you can come across such a phenomenon in the world of art as the theater of the absurd. To understand what contributed to the emergence of this trend, you need to turn to the history of the 50s of the last century.

What is theater of the absurd (drama of the absurd)

In the 50s, productions appeared for the first time, the plot of which seemed absolutely meaningless to the audience. The main play was the alienation of man from the social and physical environment. In addition, during the action on stage, the actors managed to combine incompatible concepts.

The new plays broke all the laws of drama and did not recognize any authority. Thus, all cultural traditions were challenged. This new theatrical phenomenon, which to some extent denied the existing political and social system, was the theater of the absurd. was first used by theater critic Martin Esslin only in 1962. But some playwrights did not agree with this term. For example, Eugene Ionesco proposed calling the new phenomenon “theater of ridicule.”

History and sources

The origins of the new direction were several French and one Irish author. Eugene Ionesco and Arthur Adamov also made their contribution to the development of the genre.

The idea of ​​a theater of the absurd first came to E. Ionesco's mind. The playwright tried to learn English using a self-study textbook. It was then that he noticed that many of the dialogues and remarks in the textbook were completely incoherent. He saw that in ordinary words there is a lot of absurdity, which often turns even smart ones into completely meaningless ones.

However, to say that only a few French playwrights were involved in the emergence of a new movement would not be entirely fair. After all, existentialists also spoke about the absurdity of human existence. For the first time this theme was fully developed by A. Camus, whose work was also significantly influenced by F. Dostoevsky. However, it was E. Ionesco and S. Beckett who identified and brought the theater of the absurd to the stage.

Features of the new theater

As already mentioned, the new direction in theatrical art denied classical drama. Its common characteristics are:

Fantastic elements that coexist with reality in the play;

The emergence of mixed genres: tragicomedy, comic melodrama, tragic farce - which began to supplant the “pure” ones;

The use in productions of elements that are characteristic of other forms of art (choir, pantomime, musical);

Unlike traditional dynamic action on stage, as was previously the case in classical productions, statics predominate in the new direction;

One of the main changes that characterizes the theater of the absurd is the speech of the characters in new productions: it seems that they are communicating with themselves, because the partners do not listen or respond to each other’s remarks, but simply pronounce their monologues into the void.

Types of absurdity

The fact that the new direction in the theater had several founders at once explains the division of absurdity into types:

1. Nihilistic absurdity. These are works by the already famous E. Ionescu and Hildesheimer. Their plays are different in that the audience is never able to understand the subtext of the play throughout the entire performance.

2. The second type of absurdity reflects universal chaos and, as one of its main parts, man. In this vein, the works of S. Beckett and A. Adamov were created, which sought to emphasize the lack of harmony in human life.

3. Satirical absurdity. As the name itself makes clear, representatives of this movement, Dürrenmatt, Grass, Frisch and Havel, tried to ridicule the absurdity of the contemporary social system and human aspirations.

Key works of the theater of the absurd

The audience learned what the theater of the absurd is after the premiere of “The Bald Singer” by E. Ionesco and “Waiting for Godot” by S. Beckett took place in Paris.

A characteristic feature of the production of “The Bald Singer” is that the one who should have been the main character never appears on stage. There are only two married couples on stage, whose actions are absolutely static. Their speech is inconsistent and full of clichés, which further reflects the picture of the absurdity of the world around them. The heroes repeat such incoherent but absolutely typical lines over and over again. Language, which by its nature is designed to make communication easy, in the play only hinders it.

In Beckett's play Waiting for Godot, two completely inactive characters are constantly waiting for a certain Godot. Not only does this character never appear throughout the entire action, but no one knows him. It is noteworthy that the name of this unknown hero is associated with the English word God, i.e. "God". The characters remember incoherent fragments from their lives, and they are not left with a feeling of fear and uncertainty, because there is simply no way of action that could protect a person.

Thus, the theater of the absurd proves that the meaning of human existence can only be found in understanding that it has no meaning.

Ticket number 24.

Features of the theater of the absurd: origins, representatives, features of dramatic structure (S. Beckett, E. Ionesco).

Theater of the Absurd- a direction in Western European drama and theater that arose in the middle of the 20th century. In absurdist plays, the world is presented as a meaningless, devoid of logic, a pile of facts, actions, words and destinies. The principles of absurdism were most fully embodied in the dramas “The Bald Singer” (1950) by playwright Eugene Ionesco and “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett.

The theater of the absurd is believed to have its roots in the philosophy of Dadaism, poetry of non-existent words and avant-garde art of the 1910s and 20s. Despite intense criticism, the genre gained popularity after World War II, which highlighted the significant uncertainty of human life. The introduced term was also criticized, and attempts were made to redefine it as “anti-theatre” and “new theatre”. The “theater of the absurd” (or “new theater”) movement apparently originated in Paris as an avant-garde phenomenon associated with small theaters in the Latin Quarter, and after some time gained worldwide recognition.

In practice, the theater of the absurd denies realistic characters, situations and all other relevant theatrical techniques. Time and place are uncertain and changeable, even the simplest causal connections are destroyed. Pointless intrigues, repetitive dialogues and aimless chatter, dramatic inconsistency of actions - everything is subordinated to one goal: to create a fabulous, and perhaps terrible, mood.

The development of absurdist drama was influenced by surreal theatricality: the use of fancy costumes and masks, meaningless rhymes, provocative appeals to the audience, etc. The plot of the play and the behavior of the characters are incomprehensible, analogous and sometimes intended to shock the audience. Reflecting the absurdity of mutual understanding, communication, dialogue, the play in every possible way emphasizes the lack of meaning in language, which, in the form of a kind of game without rules, becomes the main carrier of chaos.

For the absurdists, the dominant quality of existence was not compression, but decay. The second significant difference from the previous drama is in relation to the person. Man in the absurdist world is the personification of passivity and helplessness. He cannot realize anything except his helplessness. He is deprived of freedom of choice. Absurdists developed their own concept of drama - antidrama. The drama of the absurd is not a discussion about the absurd, but a demonstration of the absurd.

Eugene Ionesco- the founder of absurdism in French drama.

The situations, characters and dialogues of his plays follow the images and associations of dreams rather than everyday reality. Language, with the help of funny paradoxes, clichés, sayings and other verbal games, is freed from habitual meanings and associations. The surrealism of Ionesco's plays originates from circus clownery, the films of Charles Chaplin, B. Keaton, the Marx Brothers, ancient and medieval farce. A typical technique is a pile of objects that threaten to engulf the actors; things take on life, and people turn into inanimate objects. In absurdist plays there is no catharsis, E. Ionesco rejects any ideology, but the plays were brought to life by deep concern for the fate of the language and its speakers.

Premiere of "The Bald Singer" took place in Paris. The success of "The Bald Singer" was scandalous, no one understood anything, but watching productions of absurdist plays gradually became good form.

In the anti-play (this is the genre designation) there is no trace of a bald singer. But there is an English couple, the Smiths, and their neighbor named Martin, as well as the maid Mary and the captain of the fire brigade, who happened to drop by for a moment to see the Smiths. He is afraid of being late for a fire that will start in so many hours and in so many minutes. There are also clocks that strike as they please, which apparently means that time is not lost, it simply does not exist, everyone is in their own time dimension and is talking nonsense accordingly.

The playwright has several techniques for intensifying the absurd. There is confusion in the sequence of events, and a pile-up of the same names and surnames, and the spouses not recognizing each other, and the castling of hosts-guests, guests-hosts, countless repetitions of the same epithet, a stream of oxymorons, an obviously simplified construction of phrases, like in an English textbook for beginners. In short, the dialogues are truly funny.

The situations, characters and dialogues of his plays follow the images and associations of dreams rather than everyday reality. Language, with the help of funny paradoxes, clichés, sayings and other verbal games, is freed from habitual meanings and associations. The surrealism of Ionesco's plays originates from circus clownery, the films of Charles Chaplin, B. Keaton, the Marx Brothers, ancient and medieval farce. A typical technique is a pile of objects that threaten to engulf the actors; things take on life, and people turn into inanimate objects.

When asked about the meaning of his dramaturgy, Ionesco replied that he wanted to “explain all the absurdity of existence, the separation of man from his transcendental roots”, to show that “when talking, people no longer know what they wanted to say, and that they are talking so that nothing to say that language, instead of bringing them closer, only divides them even more,” reveals “the unusual and strange nature of our existence” and “parody the theater, that is, the world.”

The goal of his dramaturgy is to create a ferocious, unrestrained theater, he proposes a return to theatrical origins, namely to ancient puppet shows that use caricatured, implausible images that emphasize the brutality of reality itself. Ionesco proclaimed sharp disagreement with the existing theater; of all the playwrights, he recognized only Shakespeare. Modern theater, in his opinion, is not capable of expressing the existential state of a person. Theater must move as far as possible from realism, which only obscures the essence of human life.

BECKETT.

Beckett was Joyce's secretary and learned to write from him. “Waiting for Godot” is one of the basic texts of absurdism. Entropy is represented in a state of expectation, and this expectation is a process, the beginning and end of which we do not know, i.e. it makes no sense. The state of waiting is the dominant state in which the heroes exist, without wondering whether they need to wait for Godot. They are in a passive state.

The heroes (Volodya and Estragon) are not completely sure that they are waiting for Godot in the very place where they need to be. When the next day after the night they come to the same place to the withered tree, Estragon doubts that this is the same place. The set of objects is the same, only the tree blossomed overnight. Estragon's shoes, which he left on the road yesterday, are in the same place, but he claims that they are larger and of a different color.

"Waiting for Godot."

Identification with Christ, the redeemer of human sins, with God the Father. “There is nothing more real than nothing.” This is a symbol of Nothing. For existentialists, nothing comes with a plus sign. The central characters are Vladimir and Estragon, tramps. They are tired of waiting and cannot help but wait. A boy appears and reports that Godot's appearance has been delayed again. Lucky and Potso are activists, realists, pragmatists, personifying the vanity of life. Vl. and E. are forced to eat pasture, they have no home, they spend the night in the open air. Laki and Potso are surrounded by objects of civilization. But all the characters find only illnesses in the process of existence.

Vladimir and Estragon are distinguished by their emasculated consciousness, they lack education, and Potso and Lucky even think on command. Vladimir and Estragon are friends, but they ask themselves whether it would be better for them to live separately. Potso and Lucky need each other too. Different types of human and human development.

None of the options are justified. Often characters, if they are looking for something else, are on the other side of the border. Vladimir and Estragon love to look at their own things. They hope to find something there, but find nothing. They don't try to create something themselves. To see in Nothing not only an expression of weakness, but also an expression of strength.

Beckett - the decline of human nature. Ionesco - the decline of the human spirit.

It's hard to argue with the statement that this "mad, mad, mad" world has gone a little crazy. And if anyone else doubts this, it’s worth watching at least one of the wonderful films that are collected in this “ten”. However, it is not surprising if someone wants to see or rewatch all the films. You definitely won't regret it!

1. Film “Love and Death”

director Woody Allen
Without a doubt, a cult comedy from the master of this genre, Woody Allen. Just a fountain of sparkling and at the same time intelligent humor on a very interesting topic. And the topic is next. A certain Russian landowner from a provincial town is trying in every possible way to evade the call to fight Napoleon. Because all he has in his arsenal is a long and sharp tongue. Peerless self-irony, philosophy for dummies, politics and politics again - made this film forever beloved, especially in our country. Whether the hero managed to escape the army or not, see for yourself.

2. Film "Log"

directed by Jan Svankmajer
A similar level of surrealism can only be found in Lynch. Jan Švankmajer translated a Czech scary fairy tale into screen language and it looks funny. Out of hopelessness, a young childless couple had the idea of ​​having a tree stump instead of a child... Which grows quickly and eats a lot, and it eats everything. Even a person for a sweet soul. And if the newly made parents take every possible care of their log, then their wonderful neighbors opposite do not pay any attention to their “living” daughter. As they say, the contrast is obvious.

3. Film "The Dress"

directed by Alex Van Warmerdam
How sometimes the imagination of creators amazes, the lengths to which their visualization goes! An ordinary dress, even in bright colors, but what a fuss there is around it! People just go crazy, tear it apart and still it pushes everyone to madness. It excites some, leads to the death of others, and at first glance it’s just a rag. What will happen to him next?

4. Film "City Zero"

director Karen Shakhnazarov
The plot of the film seems to have been copied from some novel by the Strugatsky brothers, where the hero finds himself in an unknown city, in which everything is topsy-turvy, different concepts and completely different morals. As in the biblical parable, they present him with his head on a platter, only it’s not someone else’s head, but his own... And there seems to be only one way out, you urgently need to get used to this so as not to simply go crazy. However, there is also wisdom in the film. Which in the end will be taken away by all and sundry.

5. Film “Investigation in the case of a citizen beyond all suspicion”

directed by Elio Petri
The film that won an Oscar. Comedy! Not a drama about Jews or a difficult war. This alone suggests that he is worth something. And there really is something to see there. Just imagine - the hero kills his woman, leaves evidence and goes to surrender to the police. In any other case, he would have already been convicted, but that was not the case. The fact is that he himself is the chief of police and no one wants to even suggest that it was him. Who said he wants to go to jail? Not at all, he has other plans...

6. Film "Firemen's Ball"

directed by Milos Forman
The last film of the famous Czechoslovak director filmed in his homeland. And knowing this, we can already assume what might have caught fire in them. That all this red absurdity, this serious circus is like a mirror of the communist regime in which the country lived then. Brave guys, excellent firefighters really intended to hold their own beauty contest at the festival!

7. Film “Black Cat, White Cat”

director Emir Kusturica
A sparkling, unrestrained, crazy comedy from the genius of Kusturica! Gypsy fun will raise the dead from the grave, and what does it do to the living... Here they shoot and sing at the same time, love and kidnap brides, and will do anything for the sake of money. Two old mafiosi sleep soundly while their children fight furiously. But for the sake of the happiness of the young, they will, of course, wake up.

8. The film “Doctor Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Atomic Bomb”

director Stanley Kubrick
An intelligent, but no less absurd comedy from the cult director Stanley Kubrick. Imagine a very real situation: the country is allegedly in danger and a military general sends nuclear bombers to attack his enemy. But the danger is imaginary, and the planes are already in the air approaching the enemy borders. And then it turns out that the enemy has an automatic response - and the country that sent the bombers may be wiped from the Earth... Have you imagined the seriousness of the situation? This is a tragedy! But not in this case.

9. Film "Castle"

director Alexey Balabanov
The film is, of course, based on the famous novel by Franz Kafka. Arriving at his destination, the hero discovers that no one is waiting for him and no one needs him here. Metaphorically speaking, the castle is under lock and key. However, curiosity takes over him, he decides to stop here and try to find out what’s going on. He stays so long that he even manages to get married. But it will never find meaning. Or is he just not paying attention? Phantasmagoria from Balabanov, a ghostly plot and clumsy characters, the motley texture of the surrounding world, it would seem that everything is there. But where can we get the answer then?

10. Movie "Tootsie"

directed by Sydney Pollack
Everything is very simple. The guy is unable to gain a foothold in the film business; they don’t hire him anywhere. Then he dresses up as a woman and gets the desired role. But to play, he needs to stop being himself. But he has a girlfriend, and she, of course, has a father. How then? Besides, dad suddenly started to like him in his new look... An awkward situation, isn't it. And no one knows what will happen when the truth comes out. A crazy comedy starring Dustin Hoffman and the charming Jessica Lange.

For those who want something more serious, we have collected.