Cambridge Introduction to Theatre and Literature of the Absurd Review

Theatre of the Cool

Michael Y. Bennett

• Concluding MODIFIED: 22 Apr 2020
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780190221911-0094

Introduction

Coined and showtime theorized by BBC Radio drama critic Martin Esslin in a 1960 article and a 1961 book of the same name, the "Theatre of the Absurd" is a literary and theatrical term used to describe a disparate group of avant-garde plays by a number of generally European or American advanced playwrights whose theatrical careers, more often than not, began in the 1950s and 1960s. Of the playwrights and writers (whether or non accurately) associated with this movement that has not been self-proclaimed, four were awarded Nobel Prizes in Literature: Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Albert Camus, and Jean-Paul Sartre (who refused the award). Other major playwrights associated with the absurd are Edward Albee, Eugène Ionesco, and Jean Genet (among other important and modest playwrights). Frequently misconstrued every bit existentialist or nihilistic plays, they signaled the end of theatrical "modernism." As such, some of these plays are considered amidst the about important and influential plays of the 20th century in their own right. Equally a group of plays, the Theatre of the Absurd, or known more than casually as "absurd theater" or "absurd drama," is widely considered, if not the most, certainly one of the most important theatrical movements of the second half of the 20th century. Besides leaving a treasure trove of important avant-garde plays, cool drama and dramatists accept left as possibly their greatest legacy, namely, that the tragicomic worldview of these plays has been subsumed by mainstream plays. Indeed, tragicomedy has become the default theatrical genre over the past v or and then decades.

General Overviews

The first book-length theorization of the Theatre of the Absurd is Esslin 1961, with an important expanded second edition, Esslin 1969. Books that followed on the heels of Esslin 1961 and Esslin 1969 that also try to theorize these works in slightly different ways are Styan 1968, Hinchcliffe 1969, Wellwarth 1971, and Mayberry 1989. Subsequently books, Brater and Cohn 1990 and Demastes 1998, look back upon the movement while also looking frontward to the movement'southward legacy. Cornwell 2006 is a major survey of the absurd, not simply in its theatrical context, but also every bit the first that also includes writers of fiction and poetry. Bennett 2011 provides the first major challenge to a reevaluation of the Theatre of the Cool, as theorized in Esslin 1961 and Esslin 1969. Bennett 2015 is the get-go comprehensive and administrative book-length introduction for the full general reader that also contains new scholarly assertions. Querido 2017 builds upon the field'south recent reevaluations of the absurd.

• Bennett, Michael Y. Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd: Camus, Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, and Pinter. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

  DOI: 10.1057/9780230118829

  The first work to offer a sustained claiming to Esslin 1961 and Esslin 1969, the author uses an up-to-appointment understanding of the philosophy of Albert Camus to suggest that the plays associated with the cool, instead of purporting the meaninglessness of life establish in Esslin 1961 and Esslin 1969, are rather ethical parables that strength the audience to brand significant out of both the plays every bit well as their ain situations.

• Bennett, Michael Y. The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre and Literature of the Cool. Cambridge, United kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

  DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781107284265

  A reader-friendly introduction that likewise makes many new assertions, this book offers structural and non-reductionist means to sympathize the common threads establish in the plays and playwrights (and also writers and poets) associated with the absurd.

• Brater, Enoch, and Ruby Cohn, eds. Around the Cool: Essays on Modern and Postmodern Drama. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Printing, 1990.

  A very important collection of essays past many leading scholars that evaluates, largely, the legacy of absurd drama. This book offers a good snapshot of the legacy of the absurd presently after the heyday of cool drama.

• Cornwell, Neil. The Absurd in Literature. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2006.

  DOI: x.7228/manchester/9780719074097.001.0001

  A very readable and all-encompassing survey, non just of absurd drama, merely besides of the absurd in other literary genres. Many precursors to the Theatre of the Cool are explored in this well-researched survey.

• Demastes, William Westward. Theatre of Chaos: Beyond Absurdism, into Orderly Disorder. Cambridge, Great britain: Cambridge University Printing, 1998.

  Taking a creative approach to understanding absurd drama, this book reflects upon the lodge and the disorder institute in many absurd plays by examining them through the lens of "chaos theory" (in the hard sciences).

• Esslin, Martin. "The Theatre of the Absurd." Tulane Drama Review 4.iv (1960): 3–15.

  DOI: ten.2307/1124873

  The article by the author who originally coined the term, and first theorized, the "Theatre of the Absurd." This article serves as the basis for Esslin 1961.

• Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd. Garden Metropolis, NY: Doubleday, 1961.

  The seminal book in which the author coined the term "Theatre of the Absurd" and, in many means, the work that is credited for the enduring importance of these plays. The author suggests that these plays should not be judged against the standards of traditional drama, but by the standards gear up forth in this volume, which argues that these plays purport, and theatrically mirror, the "sense of senselessness" and "metaphysical ache at the absurdity of the human condition" (p. 19).

• Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd. second ed. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969.

  An important, profoundly expanded 2nd edition of Esslin 1961, this book includes a far greater number of plays and playwrights than found in the former volume.

• Hinchcliffe, Arnold P. The Absurd. London: Methuen, 1969.

  An splendid, albeit brusk, overview of scholarly appointment connected to the term "Theatre of the Absurd."

• Mayberry, Bob. Theatre of Discord: Dissonance in Beckett, Albee, and Pinter. Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1989.

  A title that describes its main thesis, this book uses the related ideas of discord and dissonance to narrate the work of Beckett, Albee, and Pinter, who are, without uncertainty, the three near important native-born English language-linguistic communication playwrights of the cool.

• Querido, Pedro. "From Kharms to Camus: Towards a Definition of the Absurd every bit Resistance." The Modernistic Linguistic communication Review 112.four (2017): 765–792.

  DOI: 10.5699/modelangrevi.112.4.0765

  An impressive, well-researched article that cites many of the texts in this article, the author effectively builds on Bennett 2011 and Bennett 2015 to suggest that there is a common idea of "resistance" in absurd works.

• Styan, J. L. The Dark Comedy: The Development of Modern Comic Tragedy. second ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Printing, 1968.

  DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511554254

  Another championship that describes its overarching statement, this volume traces some of the aspects of tragicomedy found in absurd drama to narrate these plays, ultimately, as dark comedies.

• Wellwarth, George. The Theater of Protest and Paradox: Developments in the Advanced Drama. Rev. ed. New York: New York University Printing, 1971.

  Yet some other title that describes its verbal argument, this book offers some other alternative way to group/see absurd plays: that of avant-garde plays of protest that too utilize the utilize of paradox.

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