Melani Widyasari

18211144034

The Absurdism and Eugene Ionesco’s “The Bald Soprano”

The Theater of Absurd is a literary movement originally from Europe. It begins after
World War II, that have changed the society a lot, as the men are transformed for not follow
the norms and traditional standards that they have adhered to. They think that the world is
something absurd and undefined. “The absurdity of human existence”, was the focus of the
theatre of absurd itself. The first person who used the theory of absurdism was Martin Esslin.
He wrote about post-WW II, dramatic literature which contains Existential themes and it is
heavingly played with the Modernist form. This theory continues to be used by other writers
such as Samuel Beckett, Arthur Adamov, and Eugene Ionesco.

The Bald Soprano was the first work written by Eugene Ionesco. That play was a
theater of absurd and it became a modern classical play until nowadays. The Bald Soprano
was written in French first, then Ionesco’s itself translate it into English. The first premier of
“The Bald Soprano” was in French, on 11 May 1950, and it is directed by Nicolas Bataille.
This play has received the world records of “the play that has been staged continuously in the
same theatre for the longest time”. Furthermore, The Bald Soprano was recognized as an
important seminal work in the Theater of The Absurd.

The theater of Absurd always deal with a play which shows the universe as a place
that is unlogical and cannot be defined, or simply, life is meaningless and lack purpose. When
a play is a theatre of the absurd, there is some specification presented in that play such as
unrealistic characters and situations, unstructured dialogues between the character, and a
cyclical plot. In The Bald Soprano, we will meet six characters that will bring us to the
“absurdism” mostly through their dialogues and acts. This play is about The Smith couple
that invited the other couple, The Martins to dinner at their house. Also, there are other
characters will play a role, The Smith’s maid and The Fire Chief. This play was deal with the
repetition dialogues and lacks structure.

In the Bald Soprano, we often see that dialogues were presented in the pattern of
repetition for several times. The character was repeated their dialogues, with the same topic
over and over again. For example;
Mary: “I’m the maid, I have spent a very pleasant afternoon. I’ve been to cinema with a man
and I’ve seen a film with some women. After the cinema, we went to drink some brandyand
milk and then read the newspaper.”

Mrs. Smith: “I hope that you’ve spent a pleasant afternoon, that you went to the cinema with
a man and that you drank some brandy and milk”

Mr. Smith: “And the newspaper”

The other issue besides the repetition were the character was just forgotten what they’re just
doing or say, even they’re confused about who and how they are. For example at the
beginning of the play, Mrs. Smith keeps talking with his husband about they have a good
meal that day, as “...We’ve drunk the soup, and eaten the fish and chips, and the English
salad. The children have drunk English water. We’ve eaten well this evening”. Meanwhile,
when Mary inform them that their guest was already arrived at their houses, Mrs. Smith said
“Oh yes. We were expecting them. And we were hungry. Since they didn't put in appearance,
we were going to start dinner without them. We’ve had nothing to eat all day.....”. The same
case just went to the Martins couple, when they just arrived at The Smith’s house, they
realized that they are coming from the same city, the same house’ road, also the same house
and the same bedroom, then they realize that they’re husband and wife while Mary said not
that way.

In my opinion, as the story goes through, Ionesco always tried to present that, back to
the theory of absurdism; it’s about the absurdity of human existence. From the repetition
dialogues, the topic that the character discuss and then they forgot then discuss it over and
over again, the character that forgot what they will do, who they are, and how they are.
However, Ionesco wants to show us, as an audience that our conversations in daily life could
be meaningless. To support that statement, he used to show an unwillingness to speak with
others (for example, at the beginning of the play Mrs. Smith keep to talk while her husband
just kept silent), it can be concluded that he want to pursue about to have a meaningful of
context, it’s better for us to have it’s willingness first.

Furthermore, the language use by Ionesco in this work was quite unique. He uses light
and easy to understand meanwhile the meaning itself could be weird for the readers, or at
least for me. In my opinion, he was succeed to bring up this The Bald Soprano as the
Absurdism work, as it is literally absurd but it has very deep meaning and satire as if we look
deeper on that. No wonder that this work was recognized as an important seminal work in the
Theater of The Absurd.