Thursday, December 01, 2016

Carnival of the Absurd

It's opening night for "Freshman Showcase: Carnival of the Absurd."
I've been working all semester with this group of students. They have written, directed, and designed 24 short plays that explore the boundaries of what theatre can be. I wrote the following Director's Note for the program (though I'm really more of a curator in this process).

Director's Note



In his 1961 book The Theatre of the Absurd, Martin Esslin described a trend exemplified by the works of Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, and Harold Pinter. These plays flouted realist theatrical conventions, focusing instead on characters who were waiting for something to happen, or realizing the inadequacy of language for conveying ideas and emotions. Absurdism revels in nonsense and circular logic; more accessible examples might include Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22 or Abbot and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” sketch. Absurdist theatre also plays with power dynamics, malfunctioning technology, and minimalism. In envisioning a “Carnival of the Absurd,” I wanted to celebrate the optimistic side of Existentialist philosophy. In search of an absurdist hero, Albert Camus claimed Sisyphus, doomed to roll a rock uphill for all eternity, only to watch it roll down again each time he reached the summit. Thinking of Sisyphus walking back down the hill to start again, Camus encourages us to “imagine Sisyphus happy.” Every moment of failure is an opportunity to begin again. As Beckett said, “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

With Beckett, Camus, Ionesco, and Pinter as our guides, students new to the Department of Theatre have created this collection of twenty-four short absurdist plays and performances. You will see ruminations on time, health, language, logic, and politics. You will see experiments with form, including an absurdist opera interlude and absurdist tap dance. Early on, the students gravitated toward an idea of “breaking the cycle” rather than simply observing cyclical structures of absurdism. While many of these short pieces focus on loneliness and isolation, they are united in expressing a desire for human connection.