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In 1808, Emperor Alexander traveled to Erfurt for a new meeting with Emperor Napoleon, and in high society in St. Petersburg there was a lot of talk about the greatness of this solemn meeting.
In 1809, the closeness of the two rulers of the world, as Napoleon and Alexander were called, reached the point that when Napoleon declared war on Austria that year, the Russian corps went abroad to assist their former enemy Bonaparte against their former ally, the Austrian emperor; to the point that in high society they talked about the possibility of a marriage between Napoleon and one of the sisters of Emperor Alexander. But, in addition to external political considerations, at this time the attention of Russian society was especially keenly drawn to the internal transformations that were being carried out at that time in all parts of public administration.
Life, meanwhile, the real life of people with their essential interests of health, illness, work, rest, with their interests of thought, science, poetry, music, love, friendship, hatred, passions, went on as always, independently and without political affinity or enmity with Napoleon Bonaparte, and beyond all possible transformations.
Prince Andrei lived in the village for two years without a break. All those enterprises on estates that Pierre started and did not bring to any result, constantly moving from one thing to another, all these enterprises, without showing them to anyone and without noticeable labor, were carried out by Prince Andrei.
He had in highest degree that practical tenacity that Pierre lacked, which, without scope or effort on his part, gave movement to the matter.
One of his estates of three hundred peasant souls was transferred to free cultivators (this was one of the first examples in Russia); in others, corvee was replaced by quitrent. In Bogucharovo, a learned grandmother was written out to his account to help mothers in labor, and for a salary the priest taught the children of peasants and courtyard servants to read and write.
Eugene Ionesco
Is there a future for the theater of the absurd?
Speech at the colloquium “The End of the Absurd?”
Theater of the Absurd. Sat. articles and publications. SPb., 2005, p. 191-195.
"Theater of the Absurd" is the name of some theatrical works, which were born and created in Paris in the 1950s, more precisely, in the early 1950s. This definition was given to this theater by Martin Esslin, a famous English critic. Why did he call it the theater of the absurd? Perhaps because between 1945 and 1950 there was a lot of talk about the absurd, and Esslin probably decided that there was a connection between our theater and the ideas, theories or obsessions brought into fashion by Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus , Georges Bataille and some others. It seemed to him that there was a connection between this kind of theater and the post-war world, seen through the eyes of the authors I just named. Maybe he was right. As for me, I have difficulty accepting this term, but now, since it has become commonplace to define a certain theater and is used in relation to theatrical works, to the theatrical movement of the era, since this term and this theater belong literary history, then I have reason to call it absurd - the theater of the absurd. I would prefer, like Emmanuel Jacquard, to call this theater a “theater of ridicule.” Indeed, the characters of this theater, my theater, are neither tragic nor comic, they are funny. They do not have any transcendental or metaphysical roots. They can only be clowns, devoid of psychology, at least, psychology in the form in which it has been understood so far. And yet, of course, they will become symbolic characters expressing a certain era.
It seems to me that half of the theatrical works created before us are absurd to the extent that they are, for example, comical; because comedy is absurd. And it seems to me that the progenitor of this theater, its great ancestor, could be Shakespeare, who makes his hero say:
191 “The world is a story told by an idiot, full of noise and fury, devoid of all meaning and meaning.” We can probably say that the theater of the absurd goes back to even more distant times and that Oedipus was also an absurd character, since what happened to him was absurd, but with one difference; Oedipus broke the laws unconsciously and was punished for breaking them. But laws and regulations existed. Even if they were violated. In our theater, the characters seem to cling to nothing, and if I am allowed to quote myself, the old people in my play “Chairs” are lost in a world without laws and norms, without rules and transcendental concepts. I wanted to show the same thing in a more cheerful spirit in a play like The Bald Singer, for example.
Yes, characters without metaphysical roots, perhaps in search of a forgotten center, a fulcrum that lies outside of them. Beckett wrote about the same thing, more coldly, perhaps more clairvoyantly.
But the theater of the absurd had already appeared, which was neither comic nor cheerful, it was in a different style. I have enough self-conceit that it was “The Bald Singer,” “The Lesson,” “Chairs,” and “Victims of Duty” that gave impetus to the absurdity of the “new style.”
The success of my first plays was undeniable, and it pleased the British, Germans, Americans, theater people who followed us with less, equal or greater talent. And I continue to argue that the theater of the absurd and the theater of the new absurd began in the 1950s, more precisely, with The Bald Singer, staged in 1951, and The Chairs (1952) and Victims of Debt (1953). Beckett came to the theater in 1953 with his unforgettable Waiting for Godot, with more authority than he was then given credit for. I cannot claim that what I wrote later belongs to the same theatrical style. "The King Dies", for example, is perhaps too literary, except final scene, which was inspired by The Book of the Dead.
It seems to me that the word “absurd” is too strong: it is impossible to call anything absurd if there is no clear idea of what is not absurd, if you do not know the meaning of what is not absurd. But I can argue that the characters in “The Chairs” were looking for a meaning that they did not find, looking for the law, looking for a higher form of behavior, looking for what can only be called divinity.
But the theater of the absurd was also a theater of struggle - that is what it was for me - against the bourgeois theater, which it sometimes parodied, and against the realistic theater. I argued and maintain that reality is not realistic, and I criticized the realistic, socialist realist
192 Sky, Brecht's theater and fought against it. I have already said that realism is not reality, that realism is drama school, viewing reality in a certain way, just like romanticism or surrealism. In the bourgeois theater I didn’t like that he was concerned with trifles: business, economics, politics, adultery, entertainment in the Pascalian sense of the word. It can probably be said that the theater of adultery in the 19th and early 20th centuries originates from Racine, with the only huge difference that when Racine died from adultery, he killed. But for post-Russian authors this is nothing more than a trifle. Another disadvantage of realistic theater is that it is ideological, that is, to some extent deceitful, dishonest theater. Not only because it is unknown what reality is, not only because not a single person of science is able to say what “real” means, but also because a realistic author sets himself the task of proving something, of recruiting people, viewers , readers on behalf of the ideology that the author wants to convince us of, but which does not become any more true. Any realistic theater is fraudulent theater, even and especially if the author is sincere. True sincerity comes from the most distant, from the depths of the irrational, unconscious. Talking about yourself is much more convincing and truthful than talking about others, than involving people in always controversial political associations. When I talk about myself, I talk about everyone. A real poet does not lie, does not dissemble, does not want to recruit anyone, because a real poet does not deceive, but invents, and this is completely different.
After all, imagination arises along with images, with symbols, which, as I have already said, come to us from the depths, and that is why they are full of meaning and significance. Pirandello also had an ideology, psychological theories in which there is no truth, if we consider them from the point of view of depth psychology, there is no value in them. But his characters are still alive, and today you can watch Pirandello, because these living characters have a passionate attitude towards life, and they experience their passion dramatically.
Returning to myself - I apologize for this - I will say that I and some others wanted to make it obvious that it was not a love story, adultery, or even something social. We wanted to bring to the stage and show the audience the very existential existence of man in its fullness, integrity, in its deep tragedy, his fate, that is, awareness of the absurdity of the world. The same story “told by an idiot.”
193 It is in this way that we wanted to serve the knowledge of man - if these words are used at all - by providing evidence that is most rooted in our being. I believed that the theater was somewhat useless, but you can live with something useless, you need something useless: what is the use in life of football, tennis or various other matches? This is something useless that you can’t do without. But one cannot do without the so-called useless play of art, without contemplation, without prayer. Yes, art is useless, but its uselessness is necessary. They say that in the encyclopedias of new China the word “contemplation” has been eliminated: contemplation is in some sense useless and at the same time necessary and essential. People who have lost the ability to contemplate, who are not surprised that they exist and live, are spiritual cripples. Can I say that in our world art can replace religion? Since we were talking about the usefulness of art, I can ask myself a question about the usefulness of the magnificent structures of ancient temples. Built to receive believers who would come to pray, today they are visited only by tourists, not a single believer comes to them, because these religions are dead; the best of these tourists are able to appreciate and admire the purity of a spiritual structure, because an architectural structure is an idea, a spiritual structure, an abstract structure.
I will end by saying that I still don’t really know what the word “absurd” means, except insofar as it asks about the absurd; and I repeat that those who are not surprised that they exist, who do not ask themselves questions about existence, who believe that everything is normal, natural, while the world touches the supernatural, these people are defective. I don’t know whether I should feel sorry for them, whether I should be amazed by them or rejoice for them. But the ability to be surprised will return, the question about the absurdity of this world cannot but arise, even if there is no answer to it. We should pity those who live in momentary benefits, routine, politics, while we must kneel before the incomprehensible. Or, at the very least, it would be necessary to reflect on the essential problems posed by environmentalists. Maybe soon there won't be enough ozone. This will happen because of politicians, engineers and chemists who create deadly mechanisms instead of tackling the only problem that matters: the end of the world. But let’s try to ascend, at least mentally, to that which is not subject to decay, to the real, that is, to the sacred, and to ritual, which expresses this sacred - and which can be found without artistic creativity.
194 I don’t know at all whether the theater of the absurd has a future, whether it has various kinds realistic theaters. I might be able to answer this question if I asked my fortune teller about it. But those who question the viability of the theater of the absurd are enemies of the theater of the absurd and proponents of something like political realism. But there will always be a theater of the absurd, other forms of the absurd, a great variety of them. Unless tomorrow or the day after tomorrow they find the key to the secret.
It seems to me that perhaps there is a lot of exaggeration in what I said above. I wanted to talk about the battles, the polemics, that we were waging at that time with some active and caustic Brechtologists, among them Kenneth Tynan. The texts of these discussions have already become historical. But we know that ideologies are left behind. For a while they were replaced by pure performance and directing. On the other hand, the absurd has so filled reality, the very one that is called “realistic reality”, and so, the absurd has so filled reality that realities and realisms seem to us as truthful as they are absurd, and the absurd seems to be reality: let’s look around us .
The undeniable Beckett, who came to the theater in 1953 with his delightful Waiting for Godot, is not just the author of the so-called absurd drama: it is as absurd as it is realistic. Beckett makes us touch the absurd in both its drama and comedy, which have become commonplace. On top of reality, having crossed its border, we have now reached the absurd and gone beyond its limits.
Translation by T. B. Proskurnikova
Historical background of the origin of the drama of the absurd. The concept of "Theater of the Absurd"The origin of the absurd genre in Great Britain occurred mainly in the second half of the 20th century and had a certain sociocultural and historical context.
Despite the devastating effects of World War II, the second half of the 20th century became a period of peaceful prosperity. Great Britain has come face to face with globalization and the needs of a post-industrial society. In this paragraph we will consider the historical and social background of the emergence of this genre. play absurd linguistic stoppard
Regarding changes in the social and everyday life of people, we can highlight the following prerequisites:
- 1) “Consumer society”. Post-war reconstruction brought the economy to full recovery. This was the symbolic beginning of the era of "consumer society". Societies where high level wages and a large amount of free time provided a standard of living that the country had never known before.
- 2) Education. One of the important factors of prosperity was the incredible rise in the level of education among the entire population. Access to higher education provided large quantity students and, as a consequence, an increase in the number of specialists with higher education.
- 3) Youth culture .
The conservatism inherent in the first half of the 20th century gave way to tolerance towards social, religious and ethnic differences. The emergence of youth culture took place against the background of the denial of strict moral principles by the youth themselves, the emergence of freedom of thought and action. People wanted just such a society - consisting of free individuals with independent views, choosing a way of life far from what the masses were used to.
- 4) Immigration flows .
The post-war environment prompted the immigration of hundreds of thousands of Irish, Indians and Pakistanis, which played a special role in reconstruction, although it was met with unprecedented levels of hostility from the British. It was necessary to create special laws, one of which was the Race Relations Act (1976), which provided enormous assistance in resolving ethnic conflicts. Although certain racial prejudices still exist today, the second half of the 20th century saw great strides towards fostering respect and tolerance for people of different races. ethnic groups. (Brodey, Malgaretti, 2003: 251-253)
Economically, social pressure and unemployment reigned everywhere. Although prosperity spread throughout Europe, huge numbers of workers and their families faced a crisis due to job losses. The closure of mines, automobile and metallurgical plants led to unemployment and social unrest in the 70s and 80s of the 20th century.
For example, in 1984, the largest miners' strike in British history occurred. Margaret Thatcher faced fierce resistance from workers when attempting to close the coal mines. However, this was just the beginning. The Thatcher years were marked by many similar incidents (strikes by railway workers, representatives of public utilities, etc.)
All of the above factors, of course, could not but influence the cultural aspect of human life. New forms of expressing reality were needed, new ways of conveying philosophy and the complexity of life to people. The response to this need was the emergence of many modern genres of culture and literature, one of which was the theater of the absurd.
In literature, since 1960, Great Britain has been swept by a wave of publication of new works. Many of them were written only for quantity, many have survived to this day as examples of quality literature. However, modern literature is quite difficult to classify, because, despite all the differences between genres and works, they are all designed to display the kaleidoscope of modern existence. Postmodern art has spread to many areas of human life, however, one thing is clear - British literature opened up new horizons of modern life to readers, expressing it, sometimes, in forms that were not entirely familiar to the reader. (Brodey, Malgaretti 2003)
While prose and poetry moved away from the new canons of the 20th century, drama studied and used them. Traditional performing arts described the aspirations and desires of the upper class of British society, excluding any kind of experimentation, both with language and with the process of production. However, at the same time, Europe was completely absorbed in the rejection of tradition in favor of novelty and conceptuality, bringing the plays of Eugene Ionesco to the stage.
E. Ionesco's plays were called absurd because the plot and dialogues were very difficult to understand, revealing their illogicality. Absurdists received complete freedom to use language, playing with it, involving the viewer in the performance itself. There were no unnecessary distractions in the form of decorations; the audience was completely absorbed in what was happening on stage. Even the consistency of the dialogues was perceived as a factor distracting from understanding the meaning and idea of the play.
The absurd genre appeared in the mid-twentieth century in Western Europe, as one of the directions of drama. The world in plays of this genre is presented as a heap of facts, words, actions, thoughts, devoid of any meaning.
The term “theater of the absurd” was first used by the famous theater critic Martin Esslin, who saw certain works the embodiment of the idea of the meaninglessness of life as such.
This art direction was fiercely criticized, but nevertheless gained unprecedented popularity after the Second World War, which only emphasized the uncertainty and instability of human life. In addition, the term itself has been criticized. There were even attempts to redefine it as anti-theater.
In practice, the theater of the absurd questions the realism of existence, people, situations, thoughts, and all the usual classical theatrical techniques. The simplest cause-and-effect relationships are destroyed, the categories of time and space are blurred. All the illogicality, meaninglessness and aimlessness of the action are aimed at creating an unrealistic, maybe even creepy atmosphere.
France became the birthplace of absurdism, although its founders were the Irishman Samuel Beckett and the Romanian Eugene Ionesco, who created in French, i.e. non-native language. And although Ionesco was bilingual (his childhood was spent in Paris), it was the feeling of a “non-native” language that gave him the opportunity to consider linguistic phenomena from the point of view of the absurd, relying on the lexical structure as the main structure of the architectonics of plays. The same undoubtedly applies to S. Beckett. A known disadvantage - working in a non-native language - turned into an advantage. Language in absurdist plays acts as an obstacle to communication; people speak and do not hear each other.
Despite the relative youth of this trend, it managed to become quite popular thanks to the logic of illogicality. And absurdism is based on serious philosophical ideas and cultural roots.
First of all, it is worth mentioning the relativistic theory of knowledge of the world - a worldview that denies the very possibility of knowing objective reality
Also, the formation of absurdism was greatly influenced by existentialism - a subjective-idealistic philosophical direction built on irrationalism, a tragic worldview, the illogicality of the surrounding world and the inability of man to control it.
By the early 1960s, absurdism went beyond the borders of France and began to rapidly spread throughout the world. However, nowhere else did absurdism appear in its pure form. Most playwrights who can be classified in this movement are not so radical in the techniques of absurdism. They retain a tragic worldview and the main issues, reflecting the absurdity and contradictory nature of situations, often refuse to destroy the plot and plot, lexical experiments, and their heroes are specific and individual, the situations are definite, and social motives very often appear. Their embodiment is in a realistic reflection of reality, which cannot be the case with the plays of S. Beckett and E. Ionesco.
However, what is important is that the absurdist technique in the 1960s received unexpected development in a new direction visual arts- performance (original name - happening), the works of which are any actions of the artist that occur in real time. The performance is not based at all on the semantic and ideological categories of absurdism, but uses its formal techniques: the absence of a plot, the use of a cycle of “freely flowing images,” the division of structure - lexical, essential, ideological, existential.
Absurdist playwrights often used not just absurdity, but reality in its manifestations, reduced to absurdity. The method of reduction to the absurd is a method when what one wants to deny is initially taken as truth. We take a false proposition and make it true with our entire existence in accordance with the method of reduction to the absurd. Paradox arises only as a result of the use of indirect evidence. We take a false (incomplete) proposition and make it true in accordance with the method of reduction to the absurd.
Thus, using the method of leading to a contradiction, the author implements the formula “what was required to be proven.” Although the reader himself is capable of coming to this conclusion, here we cannot yet talk about any logical internal form of the work. There is only the character’s point of view, the “false”, and the author’s point of view, the “true” - they are in direct opposition. The author forces the hero to follow his logic to the end. The logical dead end to which the writer leads his hero through the method of reduction to the absurd is obviously part of the author's intention. Therefore, we consider absurd stories as a kind of thought experiments. (http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/)
But in other cases, the author does not limit himself to such a simple and formal solution to the problem. The hero continues to insist on his own, he is obsessed with his idea, he does not feel that he has crossed the boundaries of common sense. All this gives the plot of the work an absurd character. Expanding an idea towards the absurd is a process that does not always depend on the will of the author and his intentions. Now the author must move behind his hero, whose point of view leaves a static position and gains dynamics. All art world, the entire structure of the work is turned upside down: the center of the work becomes the idea itself, the “false,” which, as it were, takes away the author’s right to vote and builds reality independently. An idea organizes the artistic world not according to the laws of common sense, as, say, the author would do, but according to its own absurd laws. The author's point of view is blurred. In any case, it does not have a visible predominance in this particular fragment of the text, but as much as the author initially did not agree with this “impeccable” idea, he now fears it and does not believe in it. And, of course, the hero of the work meets the author where his insensitivity reaches its limit. The hero is afraid either of the consequences of his theories, or of the theory itself, which can sometimes lead very far and come into conflict not only with ethics, but also with common sense itself.
S. Beckett's most popular absurdist play "Waiting for Godot" is one of the first examples of the Theater of the Absurd, which critics point to. Written and first staged in France in 1954, the play had an extraordinary impact on theatergoers thanks to its new and strange rules. Consisting of desolate settings (except for a virtually leafless tree, clown-like tramps, and highly symbolic language), Godot encourages audiences to question all old rules and try to find meaning in a world that cannot be known. The heart of the play is the theme of “endurance” and “getting through the day” so that tomorrow you will have the strength to continue. In terms of structure, Godot is essentially a cyclical two-act play. It begins with two lonely tramps on a country road waiting for the arrival of a certain man called Godot, and ends with the original situation. Many critics have concluded that the second act is simply a repetition of the first. In other words, Vladimir and Estragon can forever remain “waiting for Godot.” We will never know if they found a way out of this situation. As an audience, we can only watch them repeat the same actions, listen to them repeat the same words, and accept the fact that Godot may or may not come. Much like them, we are stuck in a world where our actions determine existence. We may be looking for answers or meaning in life, but most likely we won't find them. Thus, this play is structured in such a way as to make us believe that Godot may never come and that we must accept the uncertainty that pervades our daily lives. The two main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, spend their days reliving the past, trying to find the meaning of their existence, and even considering suicide as a form of salvation. However, as characters they are absurdist archetypes who remain isolated from the public. They essentially lack personality and their vaudevillian mannerisms, especially when it comes to contemplating suicide, tend to make the audience laugh rather than perceive what is happening as tragic. (http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/)
For another representative of this genre, E. Ionesco, the absurd is a tool, a way of thinking, the most important opportunity to break through the network of indifference that tightly envelops the consciousness of modern man. The absurd is a look from a completely unexpected point of view and a look that is refreshing. It can shock and surprise, but this is precisely what can break through spiritual blindness and deafness, because it is against the usual.
The situations, characters and dialogues of his plays follow the images and associations of dreams rather than everyday reality. Language with the help of funny paradoxes, clichés, sayings and others word games freed from habitual meanings and associations. E. Ionesco's plays originate from street theater, commedia dell'arte, circus clownery. A typical technique is a pile of objects that threaten to engulf the actors; things take on life, and people turn into inanimate objects. “Ionesco’s Circus” is a term quite often applied to his early drama. Meanwhile, he recognized only an indirect connection of his art with surrealism, more readily with Dada.
Achieving maximum impact, Eugene Ionesco “attacks” the usual logic of thinking, leading the viewer into a state of ecstasy by the lack of expected development. Here, as if following the precepts of street theater, he demands improvisation not only from the actors, but also makes the viewer confusedly look for the development of what is happening on stage and off it. Problems that were once perceived as just another non-figurative experiment are beginning to acquire the quality of relevance.
Also, fully this description The nature and essence of plays in the absurd genre refers to the works of Tom Stoppard and Daniil Kharms.
The phenomenon of the theater of the absurd arises in European drama (the most prominent representatives are Eugene Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Slawomir Mrozek) as a direct reaction to despair after the Second World War. In dramaturgy, the question is raised about the crisis of understanding and forms of expression. For example, in Pinter's play "Landscape" two lovers say words to each other and outwardly it looks like a dialogue, but if you look closely, these are two monologues broken up into replicas. People do not hear each other, their speech and behavior are not a form of reaction to the speech and behavior of other characters. Or another one important characteristic theater of the absurd - all knowledge about the world, encyclopedic, axiomatic, is dead, has no meaning, has lost its meaning. The foundations and bonds of culture collapsed overnight after Auschwitz and ceased to “hold” the universe. And therefore, in Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros,” when people one after another turn into rhinoceroses (a metaphor for the fascistization of society), the intelligentsia is still figuring out whether these are African rhinoceroses or Asian ones. In addition, a crisis of expression also arises. Not only the form of communication, the very language of people has become dead and dilapidated, but there is also no message, no content - literally nothing to say. Hero of Beckett's play "Waiting for Godot" long time is silent, and then squeezes out a meaningless huge remark containing a set of incoherent words. Or the lecturer’s speech in Ionesco’s “Chairs,” which the characters wait for and announce, but it turns out to be a set of syllables. Absurdists also attack the bourgeois world, the world of comfort, the attributes of European prosperity, since they clearly realize that the fascisation of society is generated by a sense of comfort, philistinism (a parody of English household rituals in Ionesco’s “The Bald Singer”). Moreover, the idea that evil is contained in the structure itself is important. European culture, in speech, language with its sense of hierarchy, moral superiority, coloniality, imperialism; culture is a form of totalitarianism, language is the terror of rules and regulations. Absurdists made a tremendous contribution to changing the forms of drama and theater. Here is the previously mentioned collapse of the dialogue structure, and the collapse of the connection between word and deed, as well as numerous negative devices in dramaturgy (announced and failed lecture in the finale of “Chairs” or the meaningless wait for Godot not to come in Beckett’s play - ersatz events). The idea of an ersatz event reveals a crisis of faith in progress, in the fact that history has linearity and meaning, that it is moving somewhere. Society after the Second World War refuses to give history purpose, integrity, meaning, linearity, since all this is precisely what leads the world to war, to totalitarianism. Goal-setting is violence. The theater of the absurd destroys faith in psychological theater, in psychological motivations, in the validity and motivation of the characters’ behavior. Most often in the plays of the theater of the absurd we see not individuals, but types, human-functions, social masks, devoid of individual traits and even names. Time and place in absurdist plays are “nowhere,” nowhere and never. Therefore, the psychological detail of the dialogue also collapses. At the same time, the absurdist world is extremely comical. Absurdists - despite their social pessimism - depict the world at that point of decay when no one is pitied anymore. Therefore, there is an interest in parody, the grassroots genre, laughter reactions, and cynicism. But with all this, an individual reaction to the world of the absurd is possible. Absurdists, according to judgments Albert Camus, expressed in “The Myth of Sisyphus,” convince us that it is pointless to fight, argue with the absurdist, surreal world, and pointless to correct it. You can only believe once and for all that the world is absurd and cannot be corrected. But for some heroes of the theater of the absurd ("Rhinoceros" by Ionesco, "Krapp's Last Tape" and " Happy Days"Beckett) is also characterized by the following position: the world is absurd, but I am not absurd and the absurd world will not make me a part of it. Therefore, resistance in the theater of the absurd is often associated with individual resilience, existential opposition to the absurd, without attempts to turn the dehumanized world back to harmony . Some researchers see in the dramaturgy of Anton Chekhov, and even more so in the phenomenon of OBERIU (Kharms, Vvedensky), the forerunner of the theater of the absurd. But since, due to Stalinist repressions, the OBERIU culture was subjected to ostracism, censorship, and repression, the theater of the absurd turned out to be more a European phenomenon than Russian culture. Some elements of the theater of the absurd appear in the plays of Lyudmila Petrushevskaya from the 1980s, in Venedikt Erofeev's play "Walpurgis Night, or the Commander's Steps" and in other Russian plays.
Lecture 30. New Theater (drama of the absurd)
This is a type of modern drama (the so-called "New Theatre", initially ignored by the public), based on the concept of the total alienation of man from the physical and social environment. These types of plays first appeared in the early 1950s in France and then spread throughout Western Europe and the United States. This is the theater of “drama of the absurd”, created by S. Beckett, E. Ionesco, A. Adamov, who lived in Paris and wrote in French. It was, on the one hand, an attempt to update the structure and language of the theater, and on the other, the “New Theater” was a reflection of the horror caused by the cruelties of war and the fear of atomic destruction. The roots of the theater of the absurd can be identified in theoretical and practical activities representatives of such aesthetic movements of the early 20th century as Dadaism and surrealism, as well as in the epic burlesque by A. Jarry “The King of Ubu” (1896), in “The Tears of Tiresias” (1903) by G. Apollinaire, where farce and vaudeville were combined, in the plays F. Wedekind with the irrational aspirations of his heroes. The Theater of the Absurd also absorbed elements of clownery, music hall, and Charles Chaplin's comedies. The development of absurd drama (anti-drama) was influenced by surreal theatricality: the use of fancy costumes and masks, meaningless rhymes, provocative appeals to the audience, etc. The plot of the play and the behavior of the characters are incomprehensible, analogous and sometimes intended to shock the audience. Reflecting the absurdity of mutual understanding, communication, dialogue, the play in every possible way emphasizes the lack of meaning in language, which, in the form of a kind of game without rules, becomes the main carrier of chaos. It was conceptual dramaturgy, implementing the ideas of absurdist philosophy. Reality, existence was presented as chaos. For the absurdists, the dominant quality of existence was not compression, but decay. The second significant difference from the previous drama is in relation to the person. Man in the absurdist world is the personification of passivity and helplessness. He cannot realize anything except his helplessness. He is deprived of freedom of choice. Absurdists developed their own concept of drama - antidrama. Back in the 30s, Antonei Artaud spoke about his perspective on the theater: abandoning the depiction of a person’s character, the theater moves to a total depiction of a person. All the heroes of the drama of the absurd are total people. Events also need to be considered from the point of view that they are the result of certain situations created by the author, within which a picture of the world is revealed. The drama of the absurd is not a discussion about the absurd, but a demonstration of the absurd. IONESCO: Eugene Ionesco's talent manifested itself both in his early poems and in critical articles that gave birth to real revolutions and upheavals in Romanian society, but it burns most brightly in his theatrical activities.Eugene Ionesco is the founder of absurdism in French drama.The Ionesco Theater is a theater of ridicule and parody. Eugene Ionesco put on stage and ridiculed the emptiness and absurdity of the world. It opposes traditional theatrical vocabulary. Many did not understand this vocabulary, considering it devoid of any meaning, calling his plays “nonsense.” But he defended his right and title as a famous playwright of our century, as evidenced by the numerous awards he received. Most of Ionesco's plays convey the idea of the uselessness of language as a means of communication. “Reality should be enriched with absurdity, fantasy and free personal expression,” the author himself believes. And I think everyone will agree with this. The situations, characters and dialogues of his plays follow the images and associations of dreams rather than everyday reality. Language, with the help of funny paradoxes, clichés, sayings and other verbal games, is freed from habitual meanings and associations. The surrealism of Ionesco's plays originates from circus clownery, the films of Charles Chaplin, B. Keaton, the Marx Brothers, ancient and medieval farce. A typical technique is a pile of objects that threaten to engulf the actors; things take on life, and people turn into inanimate objects. In absurdist plays there is no catharsis, E. Ionesco rejects any ideology, but the plays were brought to life by deep concern for the fate of the language and its speakers. The most famous plays by Eugene Ionesco are “The Bald Singer” and “The Lesson”. These plays expose the conservatism, morality and ideology of our world. At first glance, it may indeed seem that you are reading nonsense, but re-reading or thinking about it, you will notice that not everything is absurd in the book, but absurd in reality. Comic passages, the "lack" of meaning are compared with languid reflections regarding human existence, which is marked by loneliness and death. The play “The King is Dying” tells about these reflections. Despite all the conventions of the theater of the absurd, it is thoroughly politicized, which is especially convincingly proven by the most significant creation of Eugene Ionesco, “Rhinoceros” (1959).Ionesco also shows the mechanisms that contribute to the establishment of certain ideologies. Thus, in the play “Rhinoceros,” the inhabitants of a small town are metaphorically put on stage, alarmed by the appearance of a rhinoceros and gradually turning into one. This play denounces totalitarianism. Eugene Ionesco, like the existentialists J.P. Sartre and A. Camus, explores human behavior in extreme situation when the vast majority of people submit to circumstances and only a single person finds the strength for internal confrontation. The peculiarity of E. Ionesco's plays is that they are, as it were, encrypted. Sometimes they are difficult to unravel, but with “Rhinoceros” everything is clear: in the drama we're talking about about fascism. The dramaturgy of Eugene Ionesco occupied a prominent place in literary process and in the repertoire of French and world theater. However, this does not mean at all that absurdism has won and traditional realistic drama has left the stage. An ordinary person, helpless in everyday life, goes alone against everyone. Literary fame in the early 1950s, Ionesco brought the play “The Bald Singer,” the writing history of which largely reveals the essence of his writing method. Deciding in 1948 to master the English language, the writer bought a self-instruction book and unexpectedly discovered what a storehouse of absurdity our everyday speech is, especially in relation to reality. And I thought about the original and gradually lost meaning of the words. From the comparison of words and meanings, Ionesco’s “unpleasant” theater was born, later called absurdist.However, Ionesco’s absurdity is not a deliberate absurdization of existence (Ionesco himself, by the way, preferred to call artistic direction, to which he belonged, the theater of paradox), but the ultimate exposure of his true essence. The premiere of “The Bald Singer” took place in Paris. The success of The Bald Singer was scandalous, no one understood anything, but watching productions of absurdist plays gradually became good form. “Bald girl”. In the drama itself, there is no one who looks like the bald girl. The phrase itself makes sense, but in principle it is meaningless. The play is full of absurdity: it is 9 o'clock, and the clock strikes 17 times, but no one in the play notices this. Every time I try to put something together it ends in nothing. In the anti-play (this is the genre designation) there is no trace of a bald singer. But there is an English couple, the Smiths, and their neighbor named Martin, as well as the maid Mary and the captain of the fire brigade, who happened to drop by for a moment to see the Smiths. He is afraid of being late for a fire that will start in so many hours and in so many minutes. There are also clocks that strike as they please, which apparently means that time is not lost, it simply does not exist, everyone is in their own time dimension and is talking nonsense accordingly. The playwright has several techniques for intensifying the absurd. There is confusion in the sequence of events, and a pile-up of the same names and surnames, and the spouses not recognizing each other, and the castling of hosts-guests, guests-hosts, countless repetitions of the same epithet, a stream of oxymorons, an obviously simplified construction of phrases, like in the textbook in English for beginners. In short, the dialogues are truly funny. Samuel BECKETT: Beckett was Joyce's secretary and learned to write from him. “Waiting for Godot” is one of the basic texts of absurdism. Beckett's play Waiting for the Year, staged in 1952, is the most famous play theater of the absurd, presenting life as meaningless. The fundamental difference between B.'s play and previous dramas that broke with the traditions of psychological theater is that no one previously set as their goal to dramatize “nothing.” B. allows the play to develop word by word, despite the fact that the conversation starts out of the blue and comes to nothing, as if the characters initially knew that it would be impossible to agree on anything, that a play on words is the only option for communication and rapprochement. Dialogue becomes an end in itself. But the play also has a certain dynamics. Everything is repeated, changing just enough to fuel the viewer’s expectation of some changes. Entropy (the energy output in a reaction, a chemical term) is represented in a state of expectation, and this expectation is a process, the beginning and end of which we do not know, i.e. it makes no sense. The state of waiting is the dominant state in which the heroes exist, without thinking about whether they need to wait for Godot. They are in a passive state. The play “Waiting for Godot” is one of those works that influenced the appearance of the 20th century theater as a whole. Beckett fundamentally refuses any dramatic conflict, a plot familiar to the viewer. The characters of the play - Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo) - are like two clowns, out of nothing to do, entertaining each other and at the same time the audience. They do not act, but imitate some action. It is not intended to reveal the psychology of the characters. The action does not develop linearly, but moves in a circle, clinging to refrains that are generated by one accidentally dropped remark. Not only the lines are repeated, but also the positions. At the beginning of Act 2, the tree, the only attribute of the landscape, is covered with leaves, but the essence of this event eludes the characters and the audience. This is not a sign of spring, the forward movement of time. Rather, it emphasizes the falsehood of expectations. The heroes (Volodya and Estragon) are not completely sure that they are waiting for Godot in the very place where they need to be. When the next day after the night they come to the same place to the withered tree, Estragon doubts that this is the same place. The set of objects is the same, only the tree blossomed overnight. Estragon's shoes, which he left on the road yesterday, are in the same place, but he claims that they are larger and of a different color. The quintessence of Beckett is seen in the play: behind the melancholy and horror human existence at its most unsightly, there is an inescapable irony. The characters in the play are reminiscent of the Maris brothers, the great silent film comedians.
Waiting for Godot. Summary
A village road, endless fields, almost a desert, whose monotony is broken only by one tree. There are almost no leaves on the tree. At its foot are two tramps. Estragon, unsuccessfully trying to take off his shoes, and his friend and brother Vladimir. He is concerned about the question of which of the four evangelists told the truth about the two crucified thieves. A series of banal phrases, devoid of any meaning, exchanged only to enliven the silence of this dull place. The only thing that keeps them here is the promise of a certain Godot to come. What can they do while waiting, if not kill time, endless time that needs to be filled with empty arguments, and at the same time pretend that they take them to heart... They themselves don’t know why they are together, they are used to parting and meeting every day in the same place. There's a noise somewhere on the other side, a terrible scream... Isn't Godot coming? Tarragon drops the carrot he was previously chewing, freezes, and rushes towards... Pozzo and Luke appear. The latter has a rope around his neck and is carrying his master's suitcases. Pozzo, whip in hand, treats his slave as animals are not treated. And if Vladimir and Estragon are here, why not stop and smoke a pipe? It would kill time, and besides, Pozzo loves to talk. He explains that he is going to sell Luke, who is no longer good for anything. All he can do is think. In addition, he carries you along if you push him. Finally, it is enough to take off his hat for him to again become an animal, a simpleton. They stay for quite a long time, then go away with a bang. What to do? Leave? No, Godot promised to come, we need to wait for him. Resigned to fate, Vladimir and Estragon try to discuss the minor events that marked the day, but they do not have the strength, they are tired, to successfully act out a comedy of imaginary interest. A voice is heard from behind the scenes: “Mr. (...).” A child comes and says that Godot will not come, as on previous evenings, but he will definitely come tomorrow. Tomorrow comes, all the same meaningless dialogues, without meaning, repetition of yesterday's conversation, and maybe the day before yesterday, and every day. Luca and Pozzo reappear, older; Pozzo is blind, and Luke is even more worthless, he is mute. But the rope is still there, a little shorter so that Pozzo can follow his slave, who is now wearing a new hat. At the sight of Vladimir and Estragon, Luke makes a sharp jerk and falls, taking Pozzo with him. Pozzo calls for help, that's who is really funny! Besides, it takes time. Two tramps pounce on Pozzo, kick him, lift him up - you need to have fun, talk... As for Godot, he sends him again with an apology, he will come tomorrow; maybe the solution is to hang himself from a tree using Estragon's belt? But the belt breaks... So what! They will return tomorrow, with a good rope, and if suddenly Godot comes, they will be saved... STOPPARD: “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” comes into play here characteristic English literature: the British were well aware of their history, every writer feels part of this tradition. This play has 2 readings: 1) either the action takes place after the death of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; 2) or it all seems like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. But the play is based on Shakespearean thought. There is nothing in the characters' remarks that would allow us to distinguish one from the other. Stoppard takes advantage of this characteristic. At the center of the play is the question “which of us is Rosencrantz and which is Guildenstern?” These are 2 human beings who have names that distinguish one from the other. For them, understanding who is who means the opportunity to stand out, to find their “I”. But according to the theory of absurdism, this is impossible, so absurdists do not give their heroes names. It is not possible for a person to separate his “I” from chaos. The foregoing, in our opinion, gives grounds to assert that it is unlawful to talk about any crisis, at least in relation to the theater of the 20th century. True, one cannot discount one phenomenon of the 20th century, which can be considered a manifestation of crisis, but not culture. The growth of well-being thanks to the scientific and technological revolution of the overwhelming majority of the population of Europe, the establishment of democratic tendencies in life led to the actual power in this life of the uncreative majority, unable to live by the ideas and ideals of true culture, unable to rise above the world of everyday life, and this anti-elitism of the majority of the population, not creativity-oriented, destructive to culture. The manifestation of this trend, starting from the 60s of the XX century. throughout Europe, including France, is the development of show business. Massive circulations of records, cassettes of “disco”, “folk”, “rock” music, thundering in transistor headphones from morning to evening, accompany young men and women everywhere1. However, along with the spread of show business and other negative phenomena in the field of spiritual life in Europe in the 20th century. The culture that elevates man continues to exist and develop, which is the criterion of its authenticity, regardless of the genre. Search for new theatrical forms
Last two decades theatrical life France, like Europe as a whole, has become more diverse. In Paris alone there are currently over 50 theaters in which the viewer can find productions for every taste: from the eternal works of the classics - Shakespeare, Corneille, Racine, Chekhov - in the Comedie Francaise and Odeon to modern playwrights Beckett and Ionesco in the avant-garde theaters and witty comedies in “boulevard theatres”. Every year in Avignon, Orange, Nimes and other cities of France, theater festivals are held in ancient Roman arenas or medieval castles, attracting thousands of spectators from many countries. Similar entertainment events practiced in Italy: on the ruins of the Forum, the Colosseum, and the Baths of Caracalla, performances that amaze with their grandeur and stagings of classical Italian operas based on ancient subjects are held. Thus, the production of Verdi’s opera “Aida” in the Baths of Caracalla creates an exciting feeling of the viewer’s presence in the thick of the events. All this is a search for new theatrical forms accessible to the masses of spectators. An example of such a combination of mass appeal and classics are the grandiose productions of R. Ossein in the arena of the Parisian Sports Palace of the performances “Cathedral Notre Dame of Paris", "Danton and Robespierre", "The Man from Nazareth", "Battleship Potemkin". Claude Carrère, in collaboration with the famous English director Peter Brook, staged the ancient Indian epic “Mahabharata” at the Bouffe du Nord theater in Paris. The scale of this performance is indicated by the fact that it ran either for three evenings or for twelve hours in a row from 12 noon to 12 midnight. Spectators, who came from many European countries, stocked up on thermoses of coffee and sandwiches and “sat through heroically until the end,” as Parisian newspapers wrote in 1986, when this performance was staged.
1 Doctors are seeing an increase in hearing loss due to this cause in young people.
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