Relevant bibliographies by topics / Theatre of absurdity

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  1. Journal articles
  2. Dissertations / Theses
  3. Books
  4. Book chapters

Academic literature on the topic 'Theatre of absurdity'

Author: Grafiati
Published: 4 June 2021
Last updated: 4 February 2022

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Journal articles on the topic "Theatre of absurdity"

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Curtin, Adrian. "The Absurdity of Denial: Staging the American Way of Death." New Theatre Quarterly 33, no. 2 (April 12, 2017): 125–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0266464x17000045.

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Death denial is a psychological impulse and a cultural attitude that banishes thoughts about death and disavows the reality of personal mortality. In theatre, death denial can function as an unexamined philosophy and conditioning element unless it is foregrounded and challenged. In this article, Adrian Curtin looks at two examples of American experimental theatre that did just that: a 1975 production of Dino Buzzati's 1953 play Un Caso Clinico (A Clinical Case) and Terminal (1969–1971), a collectively created work by the Open Theatre. Buzzati's play is little known, especially in English-language scholarship. This article pairs an obscure work with a canonical work in order to offer new insight into American experimental theatre of the early 1970s, indicating how both productions contributed to the contemporaneous ‘death awareness’ movement, which opened up matters relating to death and dying. These productions highlighted the illogicality and absurdity of death denial, exposing the delusional basis of this attitude and its potentially damaging effects on the individual and society. Adrian Curtin lectures in the Drama Department at the University of Exeter. He is the author of Avant-Garde Theatre Sound: Staging Sonic Modernity (Palgrave, 2014) and multiple essays on theatre sound, musical performance, and modernism. He is the 2015 winner of the Early Career Research Prize, awarded by the Theatre and Performance Research Association.
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Koroliova, Valeria, and Iryna Popova. "Destruction of Communicative Pragmatics in Contemporary Absurdist Dramaturgic Texts." PSYCHOLINGUISTICS 27, no. 2 (April 12, 2020): 195–212. http://dx.doi.org/10.31470/2309-1797-2020-27-2-195-212.

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The aim of the article is characteristics of mechanisms of pragmatics distraction in communication of active participants of modern Ukrainian plays with features of the theatre of the absurdity. Structural and contextual mechanisms of dialogic speech depragmatization are singled out on factual material. In a dramatic dialogue absurdity is explained as a purposeful instruction to convey the thought about illogicalness and chaotic nature of reality, the aimlessness of a human being. The main methods of the study are descriptive, context-interpreting and presuppositional. Study results. One of absurdity occurrence mechanisms is depragmatization – purposeful non-normative usage of language pragmatic resources. We identify structural and contextual violations within depragmatization. Structural violations are characteristic for an absurdist drama in which characters’ cues do not have illocutionary and thematic coherence. Another type of structural violations is conscious violations of formal structure of linguistic units. Role exchange, during which an active participant takes over someone else’s communicative role, is an example of contextual depragmatization. Within contextual violations we also identify the group of cognitive violations which is based on non-observance of causally consecutive and logical connections. Anomalies based on an arbitrary choice of language stylistic means, which are uncoordinated with general principles of stylistic formalization of the text, are considered the contextual variety of depragmatization. Conclusions. Structural and contextual communicative violations are used by playwrights to activate the sense of the situational absurdity depicted in a work. Active participants of drama of the absurdity communicate without communicative purpose and taking into account situational needs, which results in actualization of pragmatic potential of used linguistic units, falsification of meaningful speech.
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Jamal, Nynu V. "A Postmodern Allegory: Absurdity in Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party." Shanlax International Journal of English 9, no. 1 (December 1, 2020): 16–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.34293/english.v9i1.3516.

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The Birthday Party is an absurdist play written by the British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor Harold Pinter. He is one of the most celebrated dramatists of the Theatre of the Absurd. The objective of the paper is to examine how Pinter’s play The Birthday Party incorporates the elements of an absurdist play. The paper also tries to explain how the fragility of language to communicate is being portrayed through the play.
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Abid, Shazia. "The Element of Time in Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett." Journal of World Englishes and Educational Practices 3, no. 4 (April 25, 2021): 16–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.32996/jweep.2021.3.4.3.

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Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1952) is one of the most puzzling plays of the modern era. It is a play where nothing happens twice. Hence, the purpose of this research paper to explore the element of time in Beckett’s masterpiece Waiting for Godot (tragicomedy). The play is part of the ‘Theatre of Absurd’ and being an absurdist playwright, Beckett tends to explore the internal states of individual’s mind. It also explores the absurdity of modern man that how they are dwelling in a twilight state and unaware of their surroundings. This work is based on the belief that the universe is irrational, meaningless and the search for order brings the individuals into conflict with the universe. The study investigates existentialist’s point of views. In the play ‘Time’ represents very much dominating force as well as a tormenting tool to its characters.
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Verbivska, H. O. "THE EXPERIENCE OF ABSURDITY: EXISTENTIALISTIC PARADIGM AND PARADIGM OF THEATRE OF THE ABSURD (WITH REGARD TO SAMUEL BECKET'S PLAY 'NOT I')." UKRAINIAN CULTURAL STUDIES, no. 1 (8) (2021): 37–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.17721/ucs.2021.1(8).08.

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This article circles around the phenomenon of absurdity and absurd which appears to be greatly elaborated by Albert Camus and Theatre of the Absurd. The article reflects mainly upon Becket's dramatic monologue "Not I", which might be characterized as a sort of missing link between two forms of absurd. The style of Albert Camus puts emphasis on the inner experience extrapolated by means of the author. In this sense, the feeling of despair and existential crisis, typical for existentialism in general, brings into existence the absurdity of being as such. In comparison with that, the manner, in which Theatre of the Absurd presents current states of things, organizes the comic dimension of a given situation. To put it another way, Theatre of the Absurd sets up living intersubjectivity, which is a sense-formative precondition of the laughter, and dynamic omnipresence of the inner experience literally declared on the scene. Becket's "Not I" deploys, on the one hand, the existentialistic understanding of human beings, and, on the other, the theatrical representation injected with intersubjectivity. The article takes into account Deleuzian approach towards cinematography in order to conceptualize Becket's play. The notion of affection-image, which is taken from Deleuze, illustrates the structure and essentially the nature of images taking place in "Not I". Becket draws special attention to the image of the voice with regard to audial metaphors, which the main heroine uses during all the time of self-enunciation. Behind the words that she speaks there is an implicit trauma, which is unknown to the contemplators of the performance. It is noteworthy to admit that the organization of the play makes visible only the mouth of the heroine whereas everything remains in the shadows. Deleuzian affection-image deals with annihilated spatial-temporal coordinates and absolutization of the face (faceification). The quality of metaphors in the monologue and the decoration of space establish the phenomenon of absurdity in Becket's "Not I".
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Velmani, N. "Howard Brenton’s Transmutation from Political Theatre to Absurd Theatre." Journal of English Language and Literature 1, no. 3 (June 30, 2014): 61–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.17722/jell.v1i3.19.

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Of all the contemporary dramatists, Howard Brenton is surely the most prolific, marked by breadth and variety,his plays mainly tackling moments of great political upheavals of the time. Many of his plays are turned out at speed as quickresponses to events in public life. Brenton, as a man of political conviction, exposes contemporary consciousness. The theatreserves as a platform for his political revolt expressive of disillusionment at the failure of socialism. Following the trend ofBrechtian Epic Theatre, Brenton used the basic principles in matters of setting, characterization, empathy and dramaticstructure and the techniques of socialist realism creating a fable with characters capable of change showing the light ofdawn in the darkest night. He evolved a large-scale ‘epic’ theatre dealing in complex political issues, an attempt to constitutea British Epic theatre. Since 1965, Brenton committed himself to a career as a playwright with his first play Ladder of Foolstill the recent play Drawing the Line (2013), he has widely moved through different phases of his career as a politicaldramatist with the portrayal of England in terms of a violent political landscape. But of late, there is transmutation frompolitical theatre to absurd theatre. In his recent play Drawing the Line Brenton faces an epic task himself in distilling theturmoil of India-Pakistan partition into two hours on stage. He makes the audience realize the absurdity of decisions made bythe intelligent principled political leaders that end up in tumultuous violence and conflicting demands.
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Parvin, Shahnaj, and Rahman M Mahbub. "Perceiving Reality through Absurdity: a Prime Projection in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Ahmad’s the Thing." Shanlax International Journal of Arts, Science and Humanities 8, no. 1 (July 2, 2020): 1–6. http://dx.doi.org/10.34293/sijash.v8i1.3242.

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This paper offers an in-depth analysis of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Ahmad’s The Thing with the focus on the sense of craving to go on and to endure the existence, the ultimate reality of human life. Between these two extraordinary playwrights of Absurd Theatre, one is from the West, and the other is from the East. So, a meticulous survey on these two selected plays unfolds trajectories of convergence. This research will show that though the two plays are of two opposite continents, they are primly projecting the same theme of realizing reality through absurdity using the same structural techniques of absurd drama. The researchers find it remarkable that despite an outwardly hopeless fate, both the plays express the human spirit of continuing life through endurance and invite the audience to win the absurdity of life by enduring it. Such is reality, and,in both the plays, this realization of accepting reality comes through absurdity. However, it is narrative research that follows the descriptive-cum analytical method, and the relevant textual references are given as evidence to support the argument of this study.
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Starkey, Kenneth, Sue Tempest, and Silvia Cinque. "Management education and the theatre of the absurd." Management Learning 50, no. 5 (October 22, 2019): 591–606. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1350507619875894.

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In this article, we recommend the drama of theatre of the absurd as a novel space for critically reflecting upon management and management education as shaped by the forces of emotion, irrationality and conformism rather than reason. We discuss the theatre of the absurd as uniquely relevant to understanding our troubled times. We present a brief overview of the history of business schools and management education. We apply the idea of absurdity to the world of business schools and management education, focusing on the work of one of the theatre of the absurd’s leading proponents, Eugène Ionesco. We emphasise the importance of fiction and fantasy as key aspects of organisation and education. We contribute to debates about management education by reflecting on possible futures for management education and the business school, embracing the humanities as a core disciplinary focus. We suggest that this will help rebalance management education, retaining the best of the existing curriculum, while re-situating the study of management in its broader historical and philosophical nexus.
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Mellēna-Bartkeviča, Lauma. "Theatre and Post-Truth: KGB Experiences Reflected in the Production “History Research Commission” Directed by Alvis Hermanis." Aktuālās problēmas literatūras un kultūras pētniecībā: rakstu krājums, no. 26/1 (March 1, 2021): 310–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.37384/aplkp.2021.26-1.310.

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“History Research Commission” staged by Alvis Hermanis in New Riga Theatre (2019) is an example of post-truth coming onto the theatre stage in terms of a rather sensitive subject – historical traumas and unsolved issues that still influence today’s society in Latvia. Hermanis’s production accepts the post-truth as an inevitable and obvious present framework of modern thinking; meanwhile, the subject itself (“cheka bags”) implies the impossibility to find out any “truth” due to its distorted nature from the very beginning. “History Research Commission” paradoxically leads to conclude that the post-truth approach in theatre might be the most honest in terms of today’s world, where the truth has lost its previous status of value. The article covers the short history of “post-truth” analysed by Ralph Keyes, Lee McIntyre, and Yael Brahms. It aims to apply the notion to performing arts through the example of KGB’s experiences in Hermanis’s production (co-created with the actors of the New Riga Theatre) that seems to accept the post-truth and the tragedy of Western rationalism facing the impossibility to find out the provable truth regarding certain subjects. The message of absurdity to chase the truth in “cheka bags” confirms post-truth as the status quo of our time.
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Rost, Katharina. "Comic Sounds in Contemporary Theatre Performances: Marthaler, Pollesch, Fritsch and Gotscheff." Recherches sémiotiques 35, no. 2-3 (August 31, 2018): 163–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.7202/1051074ar.

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At the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in central Berlin, directors René Pollesch, Christoph Marthaler, Herbert Fritsch, and Dimiter Gotscheff employ comical elements of slapstick, irony, black humour, exaggeration, bluntness, vulgarity, and absurdity. Sound often proves to be significant to the comical effect of the performances as the use of music, sound effects and a specific way of speaking are characteristic for each of their individual directing styles. Even though their styles are comparable in that they all use of a vast array of acoustic elements, they nevertheless differ greatly from each other. The aim of my article is to categorize their use of comical sounds by considering how and to what effect they are employed. The comical aspect of sounds, situations or actions is not necessarily universal or trans-historical, but rather always depends on the specific cultural and historical context that also coins the specific contemporary theatre practice. The article focusses on these connections and on the shifts of attention that are mainly caused by the comical effects of sound and can cause further comical effects.
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Dissertations / Theses on the topic "Theatre of absurdity"

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Thompson, Robyn, and n/a. "'Stepping out' with Gargantua learning new research practices in the educational theatre of absurdity." University of Canberra. Education, 2003. http://erl.canberra.edu.au./public/adt-AUC20050726.094032.

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Access to new forms, conduct and practices of educational research remain elusive providing researchers stay within the narrow theoretical constructs�the static, single vista of conventional research models. This dissertation presents the findings of an experimental study that aims to extend the discourse of educational research through a 'performative ethnographic analysis' by using a single-site case study approach. The case study is an analytical parody based on multiple discourse relevant to a 'new' and different approach to educational research so that a more comprehensive and complex process of reading and writing text becomes possible. Throughout this process, a generative methodology and interpretative base are anticipated to provide a metaphoric focus for a critical dialogue. The discourse informing the theoretical and interpretative base of the study include philosophy, science, visual arts, literary theory, critical postructuralist theory and theatre performance. The data are presented as a series of performance narratives in the form of socio-drama, interspersed with critical reflection that enables the researcher, the research participant and reader to become part of a triadic construct. The findings from this study have major implications for informing contemporary educational research, as they demonstrate that by approaching research in 'new' and different ways, the researcher and the educational community have access to insights that are unavailable within the constraints of conventional models of research.
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Al-Ghafari, Hanan. "The influence of the theatre of the absurd on Arabic drama." Thesis, University of Leeds, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.364452.

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Langteau, Paula T. "The absurdity of Miller's Salesman : examining Martin Esslin's concept of the absurd as presented in Arthur Miller's Death of a salesman." Virtual Press, 1988. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/544134.

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Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, 1949, is traditionally viewed as a modern tragedy. Ample evidence in the text, however, suggests that Miller leans also toward the convention of the Theatre of the Absurd. Miller uses several techniques, including an absurdist handling of set, time and space, thought, action, and language to contribute to the larger absurdist "poetic image" of the death of a salesman. And the thematic interpretation of that image in terms of character and audience suggests the perpetuation of illusion, a common absurdist theme.Because Miller effectively combines the absurdist with the realistic elements of the drama, an absurdist reading of the play does not negate its readings as tragedy and social realism, but rather enhances those readings, providing an important additional perspective from which to view the play. An absurdist reading also establishes a definite tie between this important twentieth century playwright and the influential absurdist convention in theatre.
Department of English
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Hageland, Dustin Aaron. "Full Circle: The Development Process of Small Box with a Revolver." OpenSIUC, 2021. https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/theses/2848.

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This thesis examines the process of bringing Small Box with a Revolver from pre-writing to production at Southern Illinois University in March 2021, and my own growth in that process. I drew inspiration from the general societal behavior during the pandemic and other crises of 2020, as well as absurdist plays like Ionesco’s Rhinoceros and Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. The play was written to my stylistic preference of writing dark comedies about social issues.Chapter One examines where I began and how I developed the plot, characters and stylistic choices. Chapter Two examines the writing process, including initial peer and faculty feedback to the script. Chapter Three looks at the unique pre-production process in trying to bring Small Box with a Revolver to the stage, virtually. Chapter Four details the production itself, what I learned, and what further work I would like to do on the script. Chapter Five details my evaluation of my process throughout the MFA program as a playwright and professional, as well as my final considerations. Also included, is the production script.
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Duke, Wendy S. "Experiencing Ionesco’s Nightmare World: The Preparation and Production of Man with Bags." University of Akron / OhioLINK, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1289585453.

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Scebbi, Alyssa E. "The Chromatic Fall." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1430230127.

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Anderson, Andrew Woodruff. "The Violence of Identity Construction in French and Francophone Absurdist Theater." The Ohio State University, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1316112837.

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Collins, Rachel. "HAPPY DAYS: A MODERN WOMAN’S APPROACH TO ABSURDISM THROUGH FEMINIST THEATER THEORY." Ohio University Honors Tutorial College / OhioLINK, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ouhonors1338311141.

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Kwon, Kyounghye. "Local Performances, Global Stages: Postcolonial and Indigenous Drama and Performance in Glocal Circuits." The Ohio State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1259760023.

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Reiger, Bryon E. "The Killing Noise of the Out of Style." ScholarWorks@UNO, 2017. http://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/2355.

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Books on the topic "Theatre of absurdity"

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Demastes, William W. Theatre of chaos: Beyond absurdism, into orderly disorder. Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

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Teatro absurdista hispanoamericano. Valencia: Albatros Hispanófila, 1985.

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Sinani, Petrit. Absurdi: Tragjedia moderne e fatit. [Albania?]: Shtëpia Botuese Dituria, 1996.

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The plays of Harold Pinter: From absurdism to political drama? Marburg: Tectum Verlag, 2009.

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Lennartz, Norbert. Absurdität vor dem Theater des Absurden: Absurde Tendenzen und Paradigmata untersucht an ausgewählten Beispielen von Lord Byron bis T.S. Eliot. Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 1998.

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The theatrical critic as cultural agent: Constructing Pinter, Orton and Stoppard as absurdist playwrights. New York: Peter Lang Pub., 2001.

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Farhad Hussain: 'after the theatre of absurdity'. New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2007.

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Farhad Hussain: 'after the theatre of absurdity'. New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2007.

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Calder, John. Anthology of Absurdist Theatre. Riverrun Pr, 1995.

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Hadwen, Debra. The Theatre of the Absurdism. Taylor & Francis, 1997.

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Book chapters on the topic "Theatre of absurdity"

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"Political Theatre between Dialectics and Absurdity: Caryl Churchill’s Twenty-First-Century Plays." In Brecht and Post-1990s British Drama. Methuen Drama, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350172814.ch-004.

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"Toward a Theatre of the Tragic: The Bus Stop, The Other Shore, and the Transition from Absurdity to Tragedy." In Dionysus on the Other Shore, 59–98. BRILL, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004423381_004.

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MORARU, Alexandra. "PRAGMATICS IN EUGÈNE IONESCO’S THEATER." In Scriitori români de expresie străină. Écrivains roumains d’expression étrangère. Romanian Authors Writing in Foreign Tongues, 91–112. Pro Universitaria, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.52744/9786062613242.08.

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The use of Grice’s cooperative principles, conversational maxims and implicatures are of great utility in deciphering the semantic meanings of Ionesco's “absurdist” plays. Based on these concepts of pragmatic linguistics, we evaluate the meaning of Ionesco's short plays (The Bald Soprano, The Lesson and The Chairs) in relation to the communicative situation. Pragmatics is the field of linguistics that studies the meaning in conversation, as it is communicated by the speaker/writer and decoded to be understood by the listener/reader. Pragmatics is also the study of contextual meaning and how we communicate more than we say. Absurdist plays are particularly appropriate for such analysis, since reference and inference play an essential role in understanding the situation as well as the meaning of the characters in the tirades they utter on stage.
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BIREHANU, ZERIHUN, and JANE PLASTOW. "An Absurdist in Addis Ababa:." In African Theatre 16: Six Plays from East & West Africa, 129–38. Boydell & Brewer, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvc16kg8.12.

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"The Theater of the Absurd and the Absurdity of Theater: The Early Plays of Beckett and Ionesco." In Theater as Metaphor, 217–37. De Gruyter, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9783110622034-015.

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Birehanu, Zerihun, and Jane Plastow. "An Absurdist in Addis Ababa: Manyazewal Endeshaw's Engida." In African Theatre 16: Six Plays from East & West Africa, 129–38. Boydell and Brewer Limited, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/9781787441583.009.

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Rogers, Jillian C. "Rire as Release and Rapport." In Resonant Recoveries, 253–308. Oxford University Press, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190658298.003.0006.

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This chapter demonstrates that Jean Cocteau’s interwar musical-theatrical endeavors with “Les Six” were significant sites for coping with postwar trauma. Letters, diaries, memoirs, and performance reviews illustrate that pieces like Le Bœuf sur le toit et Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel offered traumatized playwrights, musicians, and audience members opportunities for bodily pleasure and laughter. Examination of archival sources—from period texts on laughter to accounts of humor’s importance for front-line soldiers as well as Dada and Surrealist artists—reveals that absurdist interwar musical theater was intertwined with contemporary ideas concerning the importance of laughter as a tool for emotional release, social bonding, and political expression. Analysis of the music, scenario, choreography, and stage design of Le Bœuf and Les Mariés illuminates that Cocteau and his collaborators incited laughter by drawing on common tropes that resonated with broad audiences, and through staging inside jokes based on real-life instances of music making.
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