Absurdism Beckett and his peers post WWII European movement Background 1 All playwrights played a part in WWII 2 Depressed because of the awful background of the war 3 I guess this is just how it s going to be Existentialism 1 Jean Paul Sartre a Programmed more often b Sartre s characters have to evaluate perception of themselves and have to make their own guiding principles 2 Albert Camus a Camus said human condition is absurd because of the gaps between our hopes and the irrational universe that we are born into i Must have a search for standards that allows people to find order from chaos 3 Essayists novelists and playwrights 4 Unconventional structure 5 Says there is no God and no higher meaning to life a Humanity is alone in an irrational universe b We re born we live we die c Found hope in the existence of themselves i People find truth and a higher meaning when they take responsibility for their actions and when they find a way to make order out of chaos d Man is condemned to be free and is only what he does i Man becomes what he chooses to be Theatre of the Absurd 1 Martin Esslin coined the term in 1961 from his book 2 Not a movement 3 Combined existentialism with unconventional structure 4 Most influential playwrights a Samuel Beckett i First among equals ii 20th century iii iv James Joice was mentor Joined Nazi resistance with his wife 1 Betrayed to the Nazis 2 Had to run to central rural France to hide 3 Waited without end to see if the war would end with seemingly no end v Problem of evil question vi Waiting for Godot 1 Debut in France If there is a God how could He exist and allow evil to happen 1 2 He comes up with his own answer 2 Written in French a Wasn t fluent so had to carefully choose his words 3 Characters can t take control of their lives a Keep waiting on Godot b Never ends 4 Understanding of their world is disintegrating around them because they can t control Godot or anything else 5 Godot is not God a Asking a different question b Godot is everything we unnecessarily wait for and every action we don t take 6 Have to do it how he wrote it because his estate owns it 7 Failed in America because it was billed as a comedy until done in a prison outreach impact a Created a code language based on the play because of its 8 Rediscovered when done in a found space after Hurricane Katrina b Eugene Ionesco i Purpose of theatre I not to teach a lesson 1 Wanted to entertain you so that you would be happy and more open to the message ii Characters are caricatures 1 Characters are pushed to ridiculousness 2 Larger than life makes it easier to pull back from it and enjoy it and laugh 3 Characters lose control in a funny way a Under funny is a deep theme individual 5 Discredits clich s and ideologies 4 Deadening nature of materialistic society and isolation of the a The truth is absence of commitment because commitment is the first and fatal step to conformity b Like Divergent and the Hunger Games going against conformity Individuality is messy but important and necessary c iii Elected to L Academic Francaise in 1970 c Harold Pinter i Most realistic playwright of the absurdists 1 Reads like a realistic play ii Dialogues are realistic and settings are real places 1 Dialogues capture the way that people really speak to each other in real life a Pauses avoiding saying the wrong word etc b Pauses give subtext iii Characters live in a world where you always think something bad is about to happen 1 Doesn t explain characters or why things happen 2 He thinks the play does it by itself 3 No stage directions 4 Doesn t answer any questions wants you to interpret so he only asks questions 5 May be seen as a line or a circle 6 Characters have no goals or important traits a They are just in a never ending situation b No deeper connection 7 May be in a strange setting a Or could be in a real place but something is off about that place 8 Little dialogue a Makes no sense as far as characters don t connect on any deeper level b Failure to communicate and inability to fix it 9 No happy endings no tragic ending no real ending no solution 10 Plays ask questions without suggesting answers 11 Thematic points are made but these are not well made plays Postmodernism deconstruction contemporary performance art Definitions 1 Modernism a Stylistic unity in a production b Follows one style and uses it all the way through c Contemporary happening now modernism is different 2 Postmodernism a A purposeful lack of stylistic unity in a production b A choice of dis unity c Postmodern since 1970s taking and borrowing and shifting and mashups d Current music in Gatsby e Reflexive i Calls attention to the fact that it is an art object being made 1 Music mistakes left in on purpose or people talking on record ii Called meta 1 Meta is an inside joke for the people watching that are the super fans 2 Any time the 4th wall is broken on purpose 3 Reminds us that it is a fictional construct f Works as a mashup or as meta g Values high art and popular art i Memes and YouTube channels h Served by deconstructionism 3 Deconstructionism a Meaning is never fully present because of past present and future contexts b Contemporary literary theory with multiple layers of definitions i Language traps us into meaning 1 Words we use in a literary object or don t use layer a meaning on a work that we as the writer may not fully intend 2 There is no fixed meaning to any art object especially literary 3 Even the creator of the art object cannot define the meaning of that art object a Can only offer an opinion b Any educated opinion on an art object is valid i Educated opinion means you have encountered that object and experienced it personally ii You can interpret anything as radically as you want 1 You can do Hamlet like the Lion King or anywhere in between 2 Editing the text 3 Casting changes 4 Change of scene order 5 Gender swaps iii No actual rules in deconstruction Contemporary performance art 1 Robert Wilson a Big kahuna b Uses postmodernism in his plays c Borrows from different genres and historical events in an artistically abstract way i Not realistic and straight forward ii Says there is nothing to understand in his pieces there is only to experience iii As he mashes up he starts with a single image and brainstorms from that to mash it up back together 1 Storyboards his plays out and connects the images d Uses contemporary music and slow motion actions i Don t need to …