The future of the Absurd

As the Donmar Warehouse prepares to open a new season of Absurdist plays, in The Times, Benedict Nightingale asks whether the movement associated with Eugene Ionesco and N.F. Simpson has a future.

Whether or not you agree with those Absurdists who think the Universe void, you must admire the humour with which they (Ionesco again) “exteriorise anxiety and project visible images of fear, regret, remorse, alienation”. You can quarrel with the content while relishing the form. Conventional plot, narrative logic and characterisation are mostly missing. Instead, you get dream, nightmare, hiccups from the subconscious, such as heads protruding from funeral urns (Beckett’s Play) or a giant corpse bursting into a living room (Ionesco’s Amedee).