The-Theatre-of-the-The-Theatre-of-the-Absurd.Absurd.荒诞戏剧的介绍荒诞戏剧的介绍ppt1ppt1Main Contents of This Lecture1.DefinitionofTheatre of the Absurd2.Historical&PhilosophicalBackground3.Differencesbetweenanabsurdistplayandthewellmadeplay4.TheMostImportantPrecursors5.Theatre of the Absurd inChina6.Summary 1.Whatiscalled“absurd”and“Theatre of the Absurd”?2.Whataredifferencesbetweenanabsurdistplayandthewellmadeplay?3.Whataremotifs&themesinTheatre of the Absurd?4. How many important precursors of Theatre of the Absurd have youknown?Questions for your considerations.Definition Theword“Absurd”wasfirstsuggestedbyAlbertCamus(阿尔伯特加缪，1913-1960)in1942inThe Myth of Sisphyus(西西弗的神话),inwhichCamustriestodiagnosethehumansituationintheworldofshatteredbelief,ashesaid: “Aworldthatcanbeexplainedbyreasoning,howeverfaulty,isafamiliarworld.Butinauniversethatissuddenlydeprivedofillusionsandoflightpeoplefeelstrangers. Theyareirremediableexilesbecausetheyaredeprivedofmemoriesofalosthomelandasmuchastheylackthehopeofapromisedlandtocome.Thisdivorcebetweenpeopleandtheirlives,theactorandhissetting,trulyconstituesthefeelingofabsurdity.” AccordingtoEugeneIonesco(欧仁尤奈斯库，1909-1994)，whowasborninRomaniabutlivedinParis,“AbsurdisthatwhichisdevoidofpurposeCutofffromhisreligious,metaphysical&transcendentalroots,manislost,allhisactionsbecomesenseless,absurd,useless.” The Theatre of the Absurdisatermappliedtoagroupofdramatistswhowereactiveinthe1950s.ThenamewasprobablycoinedbyMartinEsslininhisbook The Theatre of the Absurd (1961). Thephilosophicalbasisoftheabsurdisttheatreisexistentialismthatdeniesthemeaningofhumanexistenceandmaintainsthatthereisnocommunicationatallbetweenpersonandperson.Theworldseemsruthlessandincomprehensible.Humanbeingshavelostconfidencecompletely,whichresultedfromthecapitalistideologyafterWW2.Historical & Philosophical Background1.Waningofreligiousfeeling2.BreakdownoftheliberalfaithinaninevitablesocialprogressafterWW13.Relapseintobarbarism,massmurder&genocideinthecourseofHitlersbriefruleoverEuropeduringWW24.DisillusionmentwiththehopesofaradicalsocialrevolutionaspredictedbyMarxafterStalinhadturnedtheSovietUnionintoatotalitariantyranny5.Thespreadofspiritualemptinessintheoutwardlyprosperous&affluentsocietiesofWesternEuropeandtheUSA.Differencesbetweenanabsurdistplayandthewellmadeplay 1. The characters are well observed & convincingly motivated.1. The characters are hardly recognizable human beings, their actions are completely unmotivated.awellmadeplayanabsurdistplay 2. Dialogue is witty & logically built up2. Dialogue seems to have degenerate into meaningless babbleawellmadeplayanabsurdistplay 3. Beginning-middle-ending clearly recognizable3. It starts at an arbitrary point & seems to end as arbitrarilyawellmadeplayanabsurdistplay4. It is primarilyconcerned to tell a story or elucidate an intellectual problem It can thus be seen as a narrative or discoursive form of communication 4. It is intended to convey a poetic image as a complex pattern of poetic images; it is above all a poetic formawellmadeplayanabsurdistplay 5.Result :Final Message6.DYNAMIC5. It conveys a central atmosphere6. STATICawellmadeplayanabsurdistplay 7. Politics, Religion, Implicit belief in the goodness & perfectibility of peopleUnthinking acceptance of the moral & political status quo7. There is no faith in the existence of a rational and well ordered universeawellmadeplayanabsurdistplay 8. Implicit idea that the world does make sense, reality is secure , all outlines clear, all ends apparent8. Sense of shock at the absense , the loss of any such clear & well defined system of beliefs & valuesawellmadeplayanabsurdistplay. The Most Important Precursors The precursors to the Theatre of the Absurd can be found in a number of late 19th century and early 20th century writers. For example, Ubu roi (愚比王1896), by French playwright Alfred Jarry （阿尔弗雷德雅里）, is considered an early exampleof absurdist theatre for its use of nonsense language and mocking of theatrical conventions. However, the most prestigious playwrights are as follows: Eugene Ionesco, Smauel Beckett, Jean Genet, Harold Pinter, Edward Albee. In what follows, Ill give you a brief introduction about them. EugeneIonesco(1909-1994), Romanian-born French dramatist who was the most important dramatists of the 20th century. His one-act “antiplay” The Bald Soprano (秃头歌女， 1949) ， satirized the deadliness of life frozen in meaningless formalities. Because of this, this play inspired a revolution in dramatic techniques and helped inaugurate the Theatre of the Absurd. So, people usually call Ionesco father of the absurdist play. Some of his other important plays include The Chairs, Rhinoceros, and Hunger and Thirst. Ionescos achievement lies in having popularized a wide variety of nonrepresentational and surrealistic techniques and in having made them acceptable to audiences conditioned to a naturalistic convention in the theatre. Histragicomicfarcesdramatizetheabsurdityofbourgeoislife,themeaninglessnessofsocialconventions,andthefutileandmechanicalnatureofmoderncivilization.Hisplaysbuildonbizarrelyillogicalorfantasticsituationsusingsuchdevicesasthehumorousmultiplicationofobjectsonstageuntiltheyoverwhelmtheactors.The clichs and tedious maxims of polite conversation surface in improbable or inappropriate contexts to expose the deadening futility of most human communication. Ionescos later works show less concern with witty intellectual paradox and more with dreams, visions, and exploration of the subconscious. Samuel Beckett (1906 1989) was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet, who lived in Paris for most of his adult life and wrote in both English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallows_humor.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most influential writers of the 20th century. Strongly influenced by James Joyce, he is considered one of the last modernists. As an inspiration to many later writers, he is also sometimes considered one of the first postmodernists. He is one of the key writers in what Martin Esslin called the “Theatre of the Absurd”. His work became increasingly minimalist (极简抽象艺术的)in his later career.Beckett was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature “for his writing, whichin new forms for the novel and dramain the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation”.The important plays written by Beckett as follows:Waiting for Godot (1953) Act Without Words I (1956) Act Without Words II (1956) Endgame (1957) Krapps Last Tape (1958) Happy Days (1961) , and so on.Among them, the most important is Waiting for Godot. The characters of the play are strange caricatures who have difficulty communicating the simplest of concepts to one another as they bide their time awaiting the arrival of Godot. Language is ludicrous and cyclical; called “the play nothing happens.”The detractors call this play “gibberish”, or prank played on audience, whereas the supporters describe it as an accurate parable on the human condition in which “the more things change, the more they are the same.” Jean Genet (1910 1986) was a prominent and controversial French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. Early in his life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but later took to writing. His major plays includeThe Balcony, The Blacks, The Maids and The Screens. Among them, the important is The Maids which begins to explore the complexproblems of identity that were soon to preoccupy other avant-garde dramatists such as Samuel Beckett and Eugne Ionesco. With this play Genet was established as an outstanding figure in the Theatre of the Absurd. Harold Pinter (1930- 2008),English playwright, achieved international renown as one of the most complex and challenging post-World War II dramatists. His plays are noted for their use of understatement, small talk, reticenceand even silenceto convey the substance of a characters thought, which often lies several layers beneath, and contradicts, his speech. In 2005 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. The most important play written by him are as follows:The Room 房间(1957) The Birthday Party 生日晚会(1958)The Caretaker 看管人(1960) The Homecoming 归家(1965)Old Times 昔日(1971) And so onPinters plays are ambivalent in their plots, presentation of characters, and endings, but they are works of undeniable power and originality. They typically begin with a pair of characters whose stereotyped relations and role-playing are disrupted by the entrance of a stranger; the audience sees the psychic stability of the couple break down as their fears, jealousies, hatreds, sexual preoccupations, and loneliness emerge from beneath a screen of bizarre yet commonplace conversation. Edward Albee (bornMarch12,1928)isanAmericanplaywrightwhoisbestknownforThe Zoo Story(1958),The Sandbox(1959),Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?(1962),andsoon.His works are considered well-crafted, often unsympathetic examinations of the modern condition. His early works reflect a mastery and Americanization of the Theatre of the Absurd that found its peak in works by European playwrights such as Samuel Beckett, Eugne Ionesco, and Jean Genet. . . Theatre of the Absurd in ChinaThe Theatre of the Absurd had exerted strong influence upon China soon after its emergence in France in the middle of the 20th century. One of the most staunch and fruitful practitioners is Gao Xingjian, who, deeply influenced by Samuel Beckett, created his four major plays, Warning Signal绝对信号The Bus-Stop 车站Wild Man 野人The Otherness彼岸Running through the four plays is an overriding theme of escapeescape from the destructive mentality of the majority, from the polluted city life, and from the consciousness of guilt.The representative play of Gaos is His The Bus-Stop, which takes place on a Saturday afternoon, somewhere on the outskirts of a big city. Eight passengers are waiting impatiently at a solitary bus-stop for a ride downtown, but none of the buses stops. Shocked by the absurd phenomenon, the characters want toget out of the bewildering situation. However, none of them is able to make the first move: what if a bus comes the minute they walk away from the bus-stop? Should they march on toward the city or go back to where they came from? More annoyingly, they cannot reach anunanimous decision, since they would feel safe to follow the majority. Before they can figure out what has gone wrong, ten years have actually ticked away. The moment they finally decide to split up, a rain shower begins.The message, perhaps, rests on: One who makes an effort is expected to approach his destination, whereas those who would waste their time on meaningless waiting and intriguing if they merely rely on the outside forces. Another influential absurdist play is Pan Jinlian written by Wei Minglun. The theme of this play is to “attract the healers attention.” Apart from these two plays, no other important absurdist plays appeared in China.Anyway, Id like to say that, in China, there is, more or less, appropriate soil for the absurdist plays to survive and develop, for it is perhaps more incisive to expose and criticize the social evil phenomenon. On the other hand, China allows the absurdist plays to develop only because she desires to wipe out absurdity. Summary1. Motifs & Themes in Theatre of the AbsurdWhereastraditionaltheatreattemptstocreateaphotographic(逼真的)representationoflifeasweseeit,the Theatre of the Absurdaimstocreatearitual-like,mythological,archetypal,allegoricalvision,closelyrelatedtotheworldofdreams.Thefocalpointofthesedreamsisoftenmansfundamentalbewildermentandconfusion,stemmingfromthefactthathehasnoanswerstoexistentialquestions:Whyarewealive?Whydowehavetodie?Whyisthereinjusticeandsuffering?etc2.Inadequacyoflanguage2.InadequacyoflanguageOneofthemostimportantaspectsofabsurddramaisitsdistrustoflanguageasameansofcommunication.Language,itseemstosay,hasbecomenothingbutavehicleforstereotyped,meaningless exchanges.Absurdist theatre shows that words cannot go beyond the surface; they cannot express the meaning of human existence.3. Common Plot DevicesOftenthereisamenacingoutsideforcethatremainsamystery.Absence,emptiness,nothingness,andunresolvedmysteriesarecentralfeaturesinmanyabsurdistplots.Oftentheactioniscyclical(repeatsitself),orendsexactlywhereitbegins.