Theatre Of The Absured- Its Relevence To Modern Man

Theatre Of The Absured- Its Relevence To Modern Man

In the 1950’s there arose a group of dramatists who did not regard themselves as a school but who all seemed to share certain attitude towards the predicament of man in the universe a suddenly deprived of illusions. This is an irremediable exile, because he is deprived of memories of a lost home land as much as he lacks the hope of a promised land to come. The feeling of “Absurdity” overwhelms the human thinking mind when man is separated from his life, the actor from his setting. Therefore a relatively new term like “Theatre of the Absurd” must be understood as a kind of intellectual shorthand for a complex pattern of similarities in approach, method, and convention of shared philosophical and artistic premises, whether conscious or subconscious and of influences from a common store of tradition”- Martin Esslin.

The Theatre of the Absurd is said to be a reflection of the principal attitude of the modern post war Western Europe. As a result of the two world wars the earlier optimism and dynamism of Western Europe gave way to doubts and disputations. There can be little doubt that such a sense of disillusionment, such a collapse of all previously held firm beliefs is a characteristic feature of all the modern times. The social and spiritual reasons for this sudden loss of values are manifold and complex: the meaning of the traditional Christian faith, lack of trust in inevitable social progress in the wake of world war 1; the disillusionment with the hopes of radical social revolution as predicted by Marx after Stalin that turned Russia into a totalitarian tyranny, the relapse into Barbarism and torture in the Nazi Camps in the course of Hitler’s brief rule over Europe and the aftermath of the war.

Such a loss of values must have inevitably led to a questioning of the established mode of communication of meaning language. Hence the obvious rise of the Theatre of the Absurd. Contrary to established drama, absurd drama lacks a cleverly constructed story, replaces subtle characterization with vague characters and absurd present the audience with almost mechanical puppets and we find incoherent babblings in the lieu of witty repartee and pointed dialogue. And yet strangely enough these plays have worked They have exercised a fascination of their own in the theatre. In the beginning it was said that this was merely a “success descandale” It had become fashionable to express outrage about them at parties. But the success of a whole row of similarity unconventional works became more and more manifest. If the critical touchstones of traditional drama did not apply to these plays; these plays were creating and applying a different convention of drama.

It is true that basically the Theatre of the Absurd attacks the comfortable certainities of religious or political orthodoxy. It aims to shock the audience out of its complacency and to make it aware of the harsh truth of human life. But the challenge behind this message is not one of object dejection. It is a challenge to accept the realities of life with all its intricacies and absurdities and bear it with dignity because there are no easy answers to the mysteries of existence because ultimately man is alone in a void world. The theatre of the Absurd does not induce tears of despair but the laughter of liberation.

BY: GOPAL K.S