Edwardian Drama and the Theatre

of the Absurd
 George Bernard Shaw

Ibsen’s confessed admirer

To tell the “story”

Didactic in intention: "I, as a Socialist, have had to
preach, as much as anyone, the enormous power of the
environment. We can change it; we must change it; there is
absolutely no other sense in life than the task of changing
it. What is the use of writing plays, what is the use of
writing anything, if there is not a will which finally moulds
chaos itself into a race of gods.” (Letters)

“Remorseless logic” with an “iron framework of fact”

Works: Mrs Warren’s Profession, Pygmalion, etc.
 The Angry Young Men

Demise of social convention

Obsession with class, society and manners

The Royal Court Theatre: epicentre of the revolution

Look Back in Anger (1956) by John Osborne: no
innovations, but a sociological phenomenon.

“Angry and helpless”

“Kitchen sink” dramatists of the 1950’s: naturalistic,
technically traditional drama.

Shelagh Delaney and Arnold Wesker (Chicken Soup
with Barley, 1958)
Samuel Beckett and Waiting for Godot
Characteristics of the Theatre of the Absurd

A nihilistic reaction to the atrocities of war

Expressed the negative side of Sartre’s existencialism;
the helplessness and futility of a world which seemed
to have no purpose

Absurdist plays fall within the symbolist tradition

No logical plot or characterization in any conventional
sense

Dialogues as a series of inconsequential clichés

Methods: farce and laughter
 Samuel Beckett (1906-1989)

He began as a modernist and the promoter of the
reputations of Proust and Joyce; after WW II he found
his own voice.

He brought to the theatre an acute awareness of the
absurdity of human experience –the desperate search
for meaning, the individual isolation and the gulf
between our desires and the language in which they
find expression

He wrote in French and English, translating himself

Great influence on other playwrights, such as Pinter
 Waiting for Godot (1953)

Not the conventional plot, characterization or setting.

Plot

Place: a plateau with a tree. Any place. Where Godot is
not.

Time: two days. Leaves on the tree.

Action: a circle. Immobility.

Language

Postmodernist issues

Religious or mythical interpretations
How has it been staged?
Characters
Postmodernist issues
 Play (1963)

It is the absurd in itself

Artificiality

Setting and stage instructions

No action: immobility

Only LANGUAGE

Unrecognizable faces
 Harold Pinter (1930-2008)

He acknowledges the influence of Beckett

He reveals the threats behind the exchanges of everyday life

He rejects didactic or moralistic theatre and his political
involvement represents a moral commitment

He distinguishes himself from the more propagandistic
approach of Arden or Bond

His characters inhabit a world of surreal violence

Use of language to wound and control. “Menacing” early
plays.

Importance of silence