Life is Meaningless: Theatre of the Absurd

Theatre is all about change. Not only do we want to look back and identify origins, but it’s also important to explore theatre history to see how the form evolves. Often that evolution comes from an intense reaction to the previous era: Romanticism embraced spectacle, melodrama, and emotion. Realism went in the opposite direction with real-life characters and situations. 

But how do we connect students to eras that are difficult to relate to? It’s easy to say “XYZ is important,” but if students don’t find a connection with it then the impact is lost.

For example: Theatre of the Absurd.

The origins of Theatre of the Absurd (in a very brief and generalist overview) cover plays written mostly in the 1950s and 1960s with the main theme “life is meaningless.” To that end, traditional theatrical structure is often ignored, dialogue makes no sense, and characters are not grounded in reality. The playwrights most commonly associated with this are Samuel Beckett, Jean-Paul Sartre, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, and Harold Pinter. Some well-known Theatre of the Absurd plays are Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Sartre's No Exit, Genet’s The Balcony, Ionesco’s Rhinoceros & The Bald Soprano, and Pinter’s The Homecoming. Certainly, there are other playwrights and other plays written in the genre even to this day, but these are the playwrights and plays most units of study turn to. 

It’s challenging for students to link the theme “life is meaningless” with what they see in a Theatre of the Absurd play. They know that what they see on the page doesn’t make sense, but they don’t make the connection that the reason it doesn’t make sense is because it explores a specific theme. They just think the stories, characters, and dialogue are dumb.

One way to connect students is to start with a visual introduction to an era instead of a textual introduction. Twenty-first-century students tend to be visual learners, so use images to initiate a discussion. How do we do that?

Most of those who originally wrote Theatre of the Absurd plays were in Europe during WWII; both Samuel Beckett and Ionesco were in France. If you search online for what France looked like during the war, what comes back are pictures of towns reduced to rubble. A total wasteland (a sample picture is included in the PDF download below). How could you have hope for the future in such a place?

When you start with an image that clearly defines “life is meaningless,” it becomes easier to see what influenced these writers and why they rejected the Realism era of plays. As much as Realism-era writers wanted to create “real life” on stage, it wasn’t real life. Theatre is a form with structure, dialogue, and characters, and this is what Theatre of the Absurd writers highlight by going in the opposite direction: a lack of structure, symbolic or one-dimensional characters, nonsense dialogue. 

Introduction to Theatre of the Absurd Exercise

• Show students a picture from France in the aftermath of WWII. Use one of the ones included in the download or find your own. 
• Don’t give students context for the picture. Don't tell them where or when the picture comes from or mention Theatre of the Absurd.
• Have students write down their thoughts. What do you see? Where is this place? What emotions come up? What happened here? A worksheet is included in the download.
• Discuss their findings as a class. What are the similarities and differences in how students experienced the picture? Ask students: What would it be like to live in the place shown in this picture? 
• Each picture has people in it. Have students write a monologue from the perspective of one of the people in the picture. Start by having students brainstorm their ideas (Who are they? What have they been through? What do they want? Who are they talking to?), and then write their monologue based on this information. Again, don’t tell students the origins of the picture or mention Theatre of the Absurd. A Brainstorm Worksheet is included in the download.
• Divide students into groups and have them share their monologues. 
• Discuss the phrase “life is meaningless.” What does it mean? Explain to students that the picture was taken in France in the aftermath of WWII, when many places were reduced to rubble. Ask students: Can you imagine trying to live a normal life when everything is destroyed?
• Ask students: If you were writing a play, how might you show the theme of “life is meaningless”? What could you do to the structure, dialogue, and characters of a play to highlight the “life is meaningless” theme?
• You may want to use a model. Provide a monologue and have students suggest changes to the text. How do we make the structure of the monologue meaningless? How do we make the dialogue meaningless? How do we make the character meaningless? You can highlight some absurd elements such as repetition, circular plots, lack of communication, symbolic or representational characters. In the download, a sample monologue is provided along with a potential absurd version. 
• Have students rewrite the monologue so that the structure, dialogue, and character fits the theme “life is meaningless.” 
• Divide students into groups and have them share their pieces. 
• Share with students that they have entered the world of the Theatre of the Absurd, just as many of those who originally wrote absurdist plays in the aftermath of WWII. The picture we worked with was taken in wartorn France. Can you imagine how a playwright seeing this world around them would feel that life is meaningless? How could you have hope for the future?
• At this point, you can dive deeper into the background of the Theatre of the Absurd, or share an absurd play with students.