Sunday 22 September 2013

Absurdism

In which acting styles absurdism should be placed is a bit difficult. It can have elements of all kind of styles and still be absurd. In order to explain absurdism there are some specific elements to be extracted.

In an absurd play you see magnified characters in an abstract situation. Absurdism is about provoking your thoughts with laughter. It has no beginning, middle or end and doesn't look like conventional theater at all. This theater of the absurd subverts all expectations at every turn.

You might even say that if it slightly DOES look like conventional theater it is not really absurd. Absurdism on the other hand is always informative. 

Like no other acting styles absurdism puts all reality in weirdness, and still it makes you think. When you get to see an absurd performance, in style, you'll think: what and who I am watching has to be crazy. On the other hand it always has intense moments. It looks like reality but is not the reality we know.

In other words: Absurdism is the philosophy which believes that a human being's attempt to understand the universe and find meaning in it will always fail, because no such meaning actually exists. An interresting but kind of depressing thought. Still Theatre of the Absurd in the 20th century evolved into a certain genre and acting style of the performing arts which represent works of the absurdist philosophy. So for theatre this philosofical approach is quite interesting. 

An amazing example is Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett. This is the play that started a trend which became known as "theater of the absurd. Other wellknown absurdist writers are Eugene Ionesco and Harold Pinter. 

No comments:

Post a Comment