The concept of “Theatre of the absurd”: features, paradoxes and philosophy

Abstract

The theater of the absurd is a direction of drama based on the principles of total rejection of a person from the social and physical environment. Plays in this direction first appeared in the early 1950s in France, and then spread throughout Western Europe and the United States. The sources of the theater of the absurd can be identified in the practical and theoretical activities of representatives of the early 20th century, such as A. Jarry’s “King Ubyu” (1896), G. Apollinaire’s “Pop Tiresias” (1903), where farce and vaudeville were combined, in the plays of F. Wedekind withthe irrational aspirations of his heroes. The emergence of a new direction in drama was discussed after the Paris premieres of The Bald Soprano, 1950 by E. Ionesco and Waiting for Godot, 1953 by S. Beckett. The line of absurdity is manifested in the fact that in the production of the play “The Bald Singer”, that the singer herself does not exist, and on the stage, there are two married couples, whose inconsistent, full of cliché speech reflects the absurdity of a world in which language makes communiation more difficult than it promotes. In S. Beckett’s play “Waiting for Godot” two tramps are waiting on the road for a certain Godot, who never appears.