Absurdist Theater; Samuel Beckett

Lab 1:
Please work on your play projects. There is a final exam next class (as well as your drafts are due Friday).

Added to your list of terms, please know the following plays and playwrights we read and/or studied during this course (congratulations, we have read over 25 plays in one semester!):

• Talking With by Jane Martin
• Spic-o-Rama by John Leguizamo
• 'Night Mother by Marsha Norman
• Oleanna by David Mamet
• The Dutchman by Amiri Baraka
• The Baltimore Waltz by Paula Vogel
• Learning to Drive by Paula Vogel
• Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhry
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
• The Mystery of Irma Vep by Charles Ludlam
• The Vampire Lesbians of Sodom by Charles Busch
• Red Scare on Sunset, Tale of the Allergist's Wife, Psycho Beach Party, The Woman in Question by Charles Bush
• God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza
• Antigone by Sophocles
• Agamemnon by Aeschylus
• Lysistrata by Aristophanes
• Hamilton, An American Musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda 
• Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
• Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
• Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
• Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen
• The Seagull by Anton Chekhov (& "The Boor")
• Miss Julie by August Strindberg
• Salome by Oscar Wilde
• Trifles by Susan Glaspell
• "Overtones" by Alice Gerstenberg
• "If Men Played Cards as Women Do" by George S. Kaufman
• Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Classroom 2:
Absurdist Theater:

Weather got you down? Feeling as if there's no point to life? Check out this style of writing...

Characteristics of Absurdism:

1. Characters are often threatened by an unknown outside force.
2. The world or diegesis of the play/film is unpredictable or lacks meaning which the characters must contend with.
3. There is often an element of horror or tragedy; characters are often in hopeless situations or trapped.
4. Dialogue is often playful, full of nonsense, repetition, or engages in silly wordplay or banter.
5. Plays are often funny, although theme is usually serious and symbolic. Absurdist theatre is often called "tragicomedy", having elements of broad humor and tragedy.
6. There is often a good deal of farce (mistaken identity, physical comedy, slapstick, sudden entrances and interruptions, etc.)
7. Theatre of the absurd often presents characters failing at something without suggesting a solution to the problem. Characters are often "losers" who cannot dig themselves out of the problems they find themselves in.
8. Characters are often unable to communicate with others (particularly about their feelings, desires, or needs).
9. Plot is often cyclical or repetitive.
10. Plots have a dreamlike or surreal quality to them, akin to nightmare. Plot events are often taken at face value; characters are unwilling or uninterested in examining "why?" something happens and instead react to "what" happens. Therefore plot is often lacking the cause. The effect is often stressed as being more important.

A Writing Prompt: in your journals/notebooks, please write 3 metaphors. While one half of the metaphor may be a grand human idea: freedom, love, justice, revenge, marriage, hope, wealth, etc. the metaphor you create should be fairly concrete: "hope is a thing with feathers", "love is a battlefield", "revenge is a dish best served cold". Come up with 3 metaphors.

Once you have 3 metaphors, select one to build an absurdist play around. Use the characteristics of Absurdism above to help give you ideas.

Now let's chat about absurdism.

Although various classical and important plays have toyed with absurd situations, it was the futility of WWII combined with the surreal and existential that birthed such a movement. When any moment we are threatened with total destruction, what else is there to do but sit stunned and blankly in misunderstanding, or weave a web of words that lack meaning?

Traditional theater often attempts to show a realistic portrayal of life. Situations and characters are firmly rooted in reality and the common human actions that result in drama. Most plays trust the word. Words we use carry meaning. But what occurs when, with the threat of nuclear annihilation, we are not able to use our human reason and the symbol of such reason (our words) to alter our own fate? If we remove the trust in language, reason, logic, and traditional conventions of story telling, we are left with something that has no inherent meaning, but in that shape is given meaning by its opposite. Modern life is futile, lacking a sensible God figure, in which the answer to the question "what is the meaning of life?" is a resounding blackness or emptiness. All is meaningless, particularly that which is supposed to bring the comfort of meaning (i.e., words).

In the hands of playwrights like Samuel Beckett, the portrayal of a such meaningless absurdity becomes a metaphor for our own modern lives--filled as they are with anxiety, fear, hesitation, incompetence, misunderstanding, and the lack of fulfillment.

Samuel Beckett: (Beckett will separate the true playwrights from those who just pretend to be talented or intelligent). Perhaps one of the strangest plays you are likely to see (there are several, actually--see below) is Samuel Beckett's End Game.

The story involves Hamm, a blind old invalid unable to stand, and his servant Clov, who cannot sit down. They live by the sea in a tiny house. The dialogue suggests that there is nothing left outside—no sea, no sun, no clouds. The two mutually dependent characters have been fighting for years and continue to do so as the play progresses. Clov always wants to leave but never seems to be able (similar to the characters in Waiting for Godot). Also present on stage are Hamm's legless parents Nagg and Nell, who live in trash cans upstage who also bicker continuously or talk inanely.

"The English title is taken from the last part of a chess game, when there are very few pieces left. Beckett himself was known to be an avid chess player; the struggle of Hamm to accept the end can be compared to the refusal of novice players to admit defeat, whereas experts normally resign after a serious blunder or setback."

Endgame lacks action, in Beckett's typical absurdist style. Critics have compared this play with Shakespeare's Hamlet (the protagonist Hamm, for example, is thought to be a shortened version of the name).

The implication in the play is that the characters live in an unchanging, static state. Each day contains the actions and reactions of the day before, until each event takes on an almost ritualistic quality. It is made clear, through the text, that the characters have a past (most notably through Nagg and Nell who conjure up memories of tandem bike rides in the Ardennes). However, there is no indication that they may have a future. Even the death of Nell, which occurs towards the end of the play, is greeted with a lack of surprise." The play suggests the futility of life, and the random boredom, argument for argument sake, and the waste of human effort.

Here's the full play with actor Michael Gambon (better known as Dumbledore). You may read a copy of this script (or watch the film performance) for extra credit. If you read it, please write up a short summary and evaluate or review the play. What happened in the play? Did you like it? Why or why not? This extra credit can be turned in no later than Friday, Jan. 28.

Another very strange play is Happy Days by Samuel Beckett. The characters are Winnie and her husband Willie. The play is essentially a monologue. The theme is domestic life. Same thing as Endgame.

And another very strange play is the play Play. This one with late actor Alan Rickman. Similarities to the two previous plays are obvious, I think.

And finally Beckett's masterpiece: Waiting For Godot part 1, and Waiting for Godot, part 2. Another version of the play with actors Zero Mostel & Burgess Meredith. And Waiting for Godot & Elmo. Please read this play (it will show up on the final exam). Enjoy!

HOMEWORK: Complete your play projects; Study (please study!) for your final exam.