Theatre of the absurd, with reference to Waiting for Godot

In the 1950s came from France to England wave of absurd drama. Main person was:

Samuel Beckett

- dramatist of Irish origin, friend of J. Joyce. Studied in Italy and France. Wrote in French and then translated it into English.

Murphy - There is still some plot, dada, surrealism, hints of absurdity. The horrors of WWII - loneliness, anxiety, loss of identity, historic and literal perspective.
 * Wrote verses, novels, short stories till the end of war, essays.

Waiting for Godot, 1952
 * Philosophical basis is existentialism. Main basis is irrationality, deadlock. That in society we only try to forget the death and that we cannot escape it.
 * The loneliness is important but the present is more painful. In spite of it, Beckett’s characters have relationship with surroundings and try to save themselves before destructions.

Speech - in Beckett it is something like the last refuge. Self-confident pose against enemy Cosmos. In Godot there’s God missing. In later works too. Beckett tries again and again to find symbol for emptiness, horror and aimlessness of life. In all his plays he needs only minimum of theatre means. All his plays are penetrated by visual and verbal poetry which even potentiate the hopelessness.
 * He abandons any realistic features and instead of it he offers the very basic plot and setting. Two vagabonds in a waste land are waiting for Godot to come. They are expecting him but they don’t know anything about him. He never comes. They both are comic. Their language gives the play tragic and energetic effect.
 * His brother died in the war. His mother died when he was finishing it. These deaths had big influence over him.
 * Beckett creates a full range of styles which seem not to match together and seem that there’s no logical connection. Comicality, misunderstanding, no communication is possible.

End Game
 * Brought him immediate success.
 * Two tramps Vladimir and Estragon are waiting near a tree on an isolated country road. They are waiting for Godot, not sure who he is, whether he will show up to meet them at all. It turns out they do not know whether he actually exists. However they spend each day waiting for him and trying to understand the world they live in. They amuse themselves with various bouts of repartee and wordplay, they are for a while diverted by the arrival of the whip-cracking Pozzo. Pozzo drives the oppressed and burdened Lucky on the end of a rope.
 * It fuses music-hall comedy with philosophic musings about the nature of human existence.
 * Its nearly bare stage and disconnected dialogue defied the conventions of realistic theater.
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0cm">A powerful and symbolic portrayal of the human condition as one of ignorance and delusion.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"> Play, 
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0cm">There’s no hope anymore, it begins after the catastrophe, after the end of the world by atomic explosion. There are 4 people left, three cannot move in a basement. They have 2 windows, 1 to a waste land, 1 to the sea, rough picture of destroyed. Crippled humankind. They want to break free but they are afraid of freedom – existentialism.
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Freedom can be gained only in loneliness and end which is in from of a lonely man and it leads towards their death as the only possible freedom.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"> Krapp’s Last Tape, 

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"> Happy Days  <p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Harold Pinter

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Homecoming
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Actor, knew theatre, absurd drama and plays for radio and TV.
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Drama The Caretaker was filmed.
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Comedy of menace - černá komedie hrůzy. Existential uncertainty of people living in the cities. Panic fear, aren’t able to communicate in enemy world. Tragic loss of orientation and perspective.
 * <p style="margin-bottom:0cm">He closes his characters into a single room where they are under pressure of the world.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">No Man’s Land