absurd theatre_context.pptx
TRANSCRIPT
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absurd theatre,
existentialism,
context,
beckett Sipra Mukherjee
Course 202 401 West Bengal State University
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didi and gogo
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waiting for godot
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social and historical background of
the age
• evils of imperialism exposed as
dehumanizing to both the colonised and
the coloniser
• impact of the two shockingly destructive
World Wars (potential of evil in human
nature a revelation) • Eminence of western Europe lost with
the world wars
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intellectual background of the times • Absurdity of human situation in thearbitrary world -
• Impermanence of values, life,
conventions (arbitrariness of world)
• Loss of faith in certainties/religion
• Doubts about scientific progressbeing equated with advance of
civilization
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the shock of the 2nd world war
• The F irst World War was
supposed to be ‘the war to end
all wars’, so the outbreak of
World War Two in 1939, alongwith the atrocities it brought,
destroyed all the basicassumptions people had about
life.
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feelings of uncertainty about
humanity and life
Faced with the horrors of the trench
warfare and the holocaust, people
began to lose their faith in god.The attitude of the ‘Theatre of the Absurd’ is perhaps best summarised
by Beckett’s character, Clov, whoquestions ‘…You and I meansomething?’
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‘THE SCREAM’
EDWARD MUNCH 'I was out walking with two friends. Thesun began to set. I felt a breath of
melancholy. Suddenly the sky turned
blood-red. I paused, deathly tired andleaned on a fence looking out across the
flaming clouds over the blue-black fjord
and towns. My friends walked on andthere I still stood, trembling with fear -and
I sensed a great, infinite scream run
through nature.'
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the scream
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production history of play
• – the original French En Attendant
Godot – the text was composed
between 1948 and 1949.• Premiered in Paris, 1953.
•
Waiting for Godot – was Beckett’stranslation of his play, 1955,
London.
h l h / h k
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Philosophers/writers whose works
are are existentialist in tone/theme: Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky Friedrich Nietzsche Martin Heidegger Franz Kafka, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus
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Arthur Schopenhauer :
"Life is a task —drudgery filled with universal
need, ceaseless cares, constant pressure,endless strife, compulsory activity requiring
extreme exertion of all the powers of body
and mind. The tumult is indescribable. And
the ultimate aim of it all, what is it? To
sustain an ephemeral and tormented
individual through a short span of time, in
the most fortunate case with endurable want
and comparative freedom from pain...and to
reproduce the race and its strivings.
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In this evident disproportion between the
trouble and the reward, the will to live
appears to us from this point of view, iftaken objectively, as a fool's paradise, or
subjectively, as a delusion wherein
everyone living works with the utmostexertion of his strength for something
that is of no value. And when we consider
it more closely, we shall find that this willto live is rather a blind pressure, a
tendency entirely without ground or
motive."
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Kierkegaard : Maintained that
the individual is solely
responsible for giving his orher own life meaning and for
living that life passionatelyand sincerely, in spite of
many existential obstacles
and distractions includingdespair, angst, absurdity,
alienation, and boredom .
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playwrights of the absurd theatre •Samuel Beckett, •Eugène Ionesco, • Jean Genet, •Harold Pinter, •Tom Stoppard, •Friedrich Dürrenmatt, and •Edward Albee.
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origins
•Theatre of the Absurd is thoughtto have or iginated from the
theatre of ancient Greece
between c. 550 and c.220 BC.
From what was named ‘Old
Comedy’, particularly from theworks of playwr ights such as
Aristophanes (The Frogs)
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Old Comedy is thought to have come about
from songs, mime and improvisation where
there was satir ical treatment of domestic
situations and from myths and commentary on
society, poli tics, li terature and the
Peloponnesian War that was happening
between the Athenian Empire and thePeloponnesian league, led by Sparta. Old
Comedy was often exaggerated and farcical
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origins: ‘ Ubu Roi ’ In 1896 a French writer named Alfred Jarry
created a play called ‘ Ubu Roi ’ (King Ubu).
This is acknowledged as influencing the Dadaand Surrealist movements , and as a theatrical
precursor to Theatre of the Absurd.
The play ridicules European philosophies andtheir sometimes ludicrous practices includingaspects of folklore, myth and storylines.
Jarry’s plays are said to be greatly hated for
their lack of respect to society, religion androyalty. They were vulgar and brutally harsh,mocking theatrical conventions and using anonsensical blend of language and song.
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Clifford Odet’s Waiting for Lefty
Odet’s famous 1935 play Waiting
for Lefty was about workers
oppressed by capitalism, waiting for the salvation in the form
of union organiser Lefty. But the play ends as the workers learn
that Lefty will not come after all
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Leading to the following aspects
of Absurd Theatre: unusual, innovative, avantgarde
forms, to startle the audience
out of the comfortable,conventional life of everyday
concerns
attempt to bring ritual and myth
back into our lives through art.
Pl i h h B k d Pi
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Playwrights such as Beckett and Pinterdid not claim to be part of the
‘Theatre of the Absurd ’. It was notthey who gave the name to theirmovement. Instead, this was a name
given to their work by others.To be part of the ‘anti -theatre’movement was found more
acceptable, as they attackedtraditional art forms as no longerbeing valid in this pointless existence.
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w hat is the ‘absurd’?
The ‘absurd’ in this sense refers not to
the ridiculous but to being ‘out of
harmony’.
Camus argued that it was the world that
was absurd, and that the theatre was only
reflecting this absurdityEugene Ionesco claimed that the ‘Absurd
is that which is devoid of purpose…’
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distrust of language as a means
of communication. Language
appeared to be a vehicle formere conventional, meaningless
exchanges, unable to express theessence of human experience Drama of this age becomes
either a parody or dismissal of
concept of the "well-made play".
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Friedrich Nietzsche ‘God is Dead’
• In 1883 a revolutionary thesis was published bythe German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Itwas called ‘Thus spoke Zarathustra’ and it
declared that ‘God is dead’. • Nietzsche wrote of religion, morality, philosophy
and contemporary culture, he has been a greatinfluence in many fields including Existentialism
and Post Modernism as he radically questionedthe value of truth, he sought to bring about amore naturalistic source of value in the impulsesof life itself.
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absurdism •
Beckett’s/Camus’ philosophy hassometimes been called Absurdism, which
focusses on the conflict between human
potential/yearning and ability/reality.
•This is closer to existentialism and
nihilism-, which appeared a more
probable explanation (?) of life in thecontext of the post-2ndWorld War
devastated France.
" i it f i d fi f th h l f
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"... in spite of or in defiance of the whole of
existence he wills to be himself with it, to
take it along, almost defying his torment.
For to hope in the possibility of help, not to
speak of help by virtue of the absurd, that
for God all things are possible– no, that he
will not do. And as for seeking help from any
other – no, that he will not do for all the
world; rather than seek help he would prefer
to be himself – with all the tortures of hell, ifso it must be." -Søren Kierkegaard,The Sickness Unto Death
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theatre of the absurd The term coined by Martin
Esslin Refers to a kind of theatre in
late 1940s to 1960s Inspired by Albert Camus’
idea of the arbitrariness of
human existence in this world.
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Camus’ in his 'Myth of Sisyphus’
(1942) first defined the humansituation as basically meaningless and
absurd. The 'absurd' plays all share
the view that man is inhabiting auniverse with which he is out of key.
Its meaning is indecipherable and his
place within it is without purpose. He
is bewildered, troubled and obscurely
threatened.
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an anecdote eckett walking with a friend across a
soccer field on a sunny afternoon,
heading for a pub:
Beckett: It's a beautiful day, isn't it?“ The friend: Yes, it makes one glad to
be alive.“
Beckett: Aw now, I wouldn't go that
far..