ABSURDISM

or, What’s the Point?

ABSURDISM

ABSURDISM

• Ab•surd•ism: 1. Intentionally ridiculous or bizarre behavior or character. 2. The belief that human beings exist in a purposeless, chaotic universe.
• AND: Absurdism is a philosophy stating that the efforts of humanity to find meaning in the universe ultimately fail (and hence are absurd), because no such meaning exists, at least in relation to the individual.

ABSURDISM

• “Every artistic expression is either influenced by or adds something to politics.” –Dario Fo (1926 – 2016, Italian theatre practitioner/theorist)

ABSURDISM

• Humans have long searched for the “meaning” of life.
• Why are we here?
• Who created us and to what end?
• Is there an “all good” god?
• If there is a god, does he (or she) intervene?

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• 1922: Benito Mussolini rules Italy as Prime Minister from 1922 to 1943. In 1925 he dropped the pretense of a democracy and established a dictatorship.

ABSURDISM

• 1929: Joseph Stalin rules USSR from 1929 to his death in 1953. In 1937, Stalin consolidated power and made himself de facto dictator.

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ABSURDISM

• 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt elected US President.

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1933: Adolph Hitler appointed Chancellor; Nazi terror begins.

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1934: Hitler elected Führer by German citizens.

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• 1934: Stalin begins Great Purge of people considered “enemies to the working class”. Hundreds of thousands of people – including senior political and military figures – were interned in prison camps, exiled, or executed.

ABSURDISM

1935: Nuremberg Laws deprive Jews of citizenship. Nazis introduce compulsory military service.

ABSURDISM

• 1949: Mao Zedong drove out Imperialism in China and established the Communist Party of China, but his legacy was that his government was totalitarian in nature.

ABSURDISM

• 1941-1942: the Manhattan Project was created to build an atomic bomb intended to end World War II.

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• The Manhattan Project was under the guidance of Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, a physicist, who, when he set off the first atomic bomb (in the Pacific islands), quoted two lines from the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita: “I am become death, the shatterer of worlds.”

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ABSURDISM

• 1949: US dominance on the race for atomic weaponry ends when USSR detonates its own device.
• August 6, 1945: USA drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
• August 9, 1945: USA drops atomic bomb on Nagasaki.

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ABSURDISM

• Deaths during WWII by Nazism, Stalinism, USA:
• 6 million Jews in Holocaust/Death camps
• 9-10 million killed by Nazis (including gypsies, vagrants, Slavs, disabled, homosexuals)
• 20 million killed by Stalin (Gulag camps, executions – this number is contested, +/-)
• 200,000 by American atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• 400,000 Americans killed during WWII

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ABSURDISM

• 1942: Albert Camus writes The Myth of Sisyphus.
• But what exactly does the term “Absurdism” mean when it comes to literature and especially play writing?

ABSURDISM

• Absurdism shares common concepts with existentialism and nihilism. It has its origins in the work of the 19^th century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard who developed his own existentialist philosophy.

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• The aftermath of WWII provided the social environment that stimulated absurdist views and allowed for their popular development, especially in the devastated country of France.

ABSURDISM

• Theatre of the Absurd: is a post-World War II genre of playwriting and (primarily) European playwrights.
• Martin Esslin first used the phrase “Theatre of the Absurd” defining it as theatre that “attacks the comfortable certainties of religious or political orthodoxy. It aims to shock its audience out of complacency, to bring it face to face with the harsh facts of the human situation.”
• While this may seem desperate and depressing, Esslin continues,

ABSURDISM

• (Esslin, cont’d): “…the challenge behind this message is anything but one of despair. It is a challenge to accept the human condition as it is, in all its mystery and absurdity, and to bear it with dignity, nobly, responsibly; [...] because ultimately man is alone in a meaningless world. The shedding of easy solutions, of comforting illusions, may be painful, but it leaves behind it a sense of freedom and relief. And that is why, in the last resort, the Theatre of the Absurd does not provoke tears of despair but the laughter of liberation.” 1965

ABSURDISM

• Pre-Raphaelite painters (1848): William Hunt, John Millais, Dante Rossetti

ABSURDISM

Impressionism (1868): Cezanne, Degas, Monet, Renoir

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Pointillism (1885): technique borne out of Impressionism. Seurat

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• Cubism (1901): Picasso, Metzinger, Braque

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• Futurism (1910s): began in Italy. Emphasizes speed, technology, youth, violence. Aimed to liberate Italy from the weight of its past.

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• Dadaism (1915): propelled by WWI, various artists; any artist who created work specifically to reject the war.

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• Surrealism (@1924): An amalgamation of the dream world and real world to create grotesque subjects.

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• Playwrights commonly considered “Absurdists”:
• Luigi Pirandello (b. 1867, Italian)
• Samuel Beckett (b. 1906, Irish)
• Eugene Ionesco (b. 1909, Romanian born of French p)
• Edward Albee (1928, American)
• Harold Pinter (b. 1930, British)
• Vaclav Havel (b. 1936, Czech)
• Tom Stoppard (b. 1937, Czech born of British parents)