The Intersections of American Experimental Theatre and Absurd Drama
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THE INTERSECTIONS OF AMERICAN EXPERIMENTAL THEATRE AND ABSURD DRAMA MÁRTA ÓTOTT University of Szeged Abstract: The aim of this paper is to observe the interconnections between American experimental theatre and the Theatre of the Absurd, which is generally accepted as a primarily European theatre phenomenon. What could these relations be? As the paper will hopefully prove, American absurdist and experimental theatre developed in an unambiguous parallel and had a great impact on each other. Keywords: Absurdist drama and theatre, Broadway, experimental theatre, Off- and Off-Off Broadway 1. Introduction During the development of the American theatre, New York’s Broadway became the centre of American theatrical productions. However, many theatres and theatre companies emerged by the 1950s, seceding from Broadway, which had mostly been led by professionalist and profit-oriented producers (Gussow 2000:196). Due to their location and objectives, these theatres were collectively named Off-Broadway. Once its playhouses, actors, producers and playwrights let their need for profit take control, it became a part of the mainstream, not differentiating itself from Broadway anymore (197, 205). This is why towards the 1960s and afterwards, coffeehouses and theatre clubs invited playwrights with ideas and eagerness to create another counter-movement, called the Off-Off Broadway movement (202, 206). In the 1960s, theatrical experimentation flourished and became a pivotal concern for American dramatists, directors, producers, pedagogues and even actors. One significant distinction from Broadway is that Off- and Off-Off Broadway theatres were extremely open to the plays of the European representatives of the Theatre of the Absurd, e.g. Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Arthur Adamov and Harold Pinter. Also, their plays were very successful for audiences rejecting the mainstream (204). Waiting for Godot (1953) by Beckett was presented on Broadway in 1956, but the audiences who were used to visiting spectacular musicals were not satisfied with the play (Aronson 2000:214). This and similar dramas were then staged on Off- and Off-Off Broadway stages, only Ionesco’s Rhinoceros (1960) had a season of a highly modified production on Broadway (Albee 1962). Off-Off Broadway railed against the commercialist attitude that eventually reached Off-Broadway; even so, this tendency strongly connects them. Although in the hierarchy of theatre types Broadway is on the top and Off-Broadway closely follows it, Off-Off Broadway was as acceptant to these dramas as its antecedent that had originally resisted commercialization. There were American playwrights who wanted to express the questions of existence and the absurdity of mankind too. Eugene O’Neill, active in the first half of the twentieth century, was one of the playwrights in American drama literature who had an immense influence on later authors. The unbearable feeling of containment recurrent to his plays resonates with the world picture of the Esslinian absurd drama. One of O’Neill’s followers, Edward Albee borrows the idea of the world being an unlivable place in the second half of the century, as well as other dramatists, whom the paper shall refer to in the following sections. This paper investigates the connections between Martin Esslin’s notion of the Theatre of the Absurd and the history of the Off- and Off-Off-Broadway movements. 2. The Definition and the Definitional Problems of the Theatre of the Absurd in the United States of America Esslin (2004) offers a definition for the Theatre of the Absurd in his study of the same title. He defines absurd drama as a post-World War II phenomenon characteristic of Europe. In the first edition of his book (1961), he discusses the works of Beckett, Ionesco, Adamov and, in later editions, Pinter and others as well. He claims that these playwrights depict “the absurdity of the human condition” (Esslin 2004:25). The characters in these plays are doomed to entrappedness and they are in a frustrating state of transition. There is no resolution or reconciliation for them, no development of their state. If there is any change for them, it only entails a severe sense of loss. By not providing real solutions to fictional – and humanity’s – conflicts anymore, absurd drama challenges the plot structure of conventional pieces. The characters cannot find their way out, they are often in a net of relations – however, these relationships do not offer any support at all, they fail to function. This keeps alive the historical avant-garde’s disenchantment that language lost its logic, and it is presented in the plays accordingly (329). However, with the help of performance, the language of the plays “ha[s] deep, often metaphysical meaning” that expresses the philosophical message behind it (329). Esslin pinpoints literary, theatrical as well as philosophical precursors to the Theatre of the Absurd. Albert Camus, one of the major philosophers of Existentialism and Absurdism, tackles ontological questions in Le Myth de Sisyphe (1942). How Camus grasps absurdity, according to Esslin (2004: 24), is through the observation that “the world ceases to make sense” and that every intention leads nowhere. The avant-garde is also acknowleged as a forerunner – especially Dada, Surrealism and in the latest edition of his book, Esslin adds Expressionism to the list (366). With its deconstruction of language and aesthetics, it is unequivocal that the avant-garde nourished the later evolving dramatic and theatrical phenomenon. Because of the in-between state of the characters, the gags and sketches, and the language games involved in these plays, it is transparent that tragicomic and grotesque elements are at work as well. The curious surrealism of Alfred Jarry, the metatheatricality of Luigi Pirandello, and retrospectively, the madness scenes of Henrik Ibsen and the bound characters of Anton Chekhov are also recognized as influences (Brater 1990:298). When it comes to contextualizing absurd drama and theatre in the US, Esslin seems slightly uncertain. Although he claims that the Second World War was not fought on American soil, so Americans do not share the feeling of the absurd, he mentions Albee as a potential representative of absurd writing. In his plays, Esslin writes, Albee “attacks the very foundations of American optimism” (Esslin 2004:311-312) and, in this sense, he can be referred to as am absurdist. Albee felt rather offended by this label and explains in his 1962 article published in The New York Times (available on the online archive) that, although he does not want to wear any labels, he acknowledges that this dramatic style exists and that it affected American theatre. To conclude that “[the Theatre of the Absurd] is out”, he adds (Albee 1962), after its blossoming in Europe, would not be less offensive than the labelling itself. The essence of this theatre will remain the same, but its methods “will undergo mutation” (Albee 1962). For the theatre of the US, he claims, it is natural to “experiment” and give a “response” (Albee 1962 [my emphasis]). Albee first thought that this label was a way of marking a set of over- evaluated productions put up on Broadway stages. His opinion reflects his contempt for the marketing processes of the theatre district producers – who possess indispensable skills and have a free hand over dramatists and actors, contracts and the budget, in short, over the production itself. What […] could be more absurd than a theatre in which the esthetic criterion is something like this: A “good” play is one which makes money, a “bad” play (in the sense of “Naughty! Naughty!” I guess) is one which does not; a theatre in which performers have plays rewritten to correspond to the public relations image of themselves; […] a theatre in which, in a given season, there was not a single performance of a play by Beckett, Brecht, Chekhov, Genet, Ibsen, O'Casey, Pirandello, Shaw, Strindberg – or Shakespeare? (Albee 1962) This remark has direct connections to the aforementioned theatre movements. At that time, dramatists felt the urge to push the boundaries of Broadway, and Albee, for instance, very actively participated. In terms of scholarly criticism, many theoreticians accept that the Theatre of the Absurd exists in the US, and they usually connect it to the 1960s in its essence: Beckett and Ionesco, in particular, with their characters trapped in bizarre, inexplicable, and frightening worlds in which language either failed them or turned against them, seemed suddenly relevant in the American landscape of the sixties. (Aronson 2000:132) This statement is crucial, completely relevant, absolutely acceptable, but provokes criticism. The possibility of questioning the limits of Esslin’s definition cannot be seen here. 3. The Rise of Experimental Theatre in the US When considering the development of Off-Broadway, the Little Theatre Movement in diverse regions in the US should be mentioned first. It was booming between the 1910s and 1920s and promoted regional theatres and theatrical innovation instead of Broadway’s showcase performances (Carlson 2000:249). Marvin Carlson argues that the Off-Broadway movement in New York was “the post-war extension of the Little Theatre Movement” after 1945 (251). The Little Theatre Movement was a major step made to insert the European avant-garde techniques into the US repertoire starting from the 1910s and 1920s (Aronson 2000:88). Jacques Copeau’s and Michel Saint-Denis’ influence became visible in the “semi-abstract stage design” of many productions by the 1930s (89). As an example for abstract visual elements (though not particularly reminiscent of either Copeau’s or Saint-Denis’ techniques), Elmer Rice’s The Adding Machine (1923) can be seen as a milestone in terms of its eerie, Expressionist stage design (Walker 2005:176-177). The fallen, almost pathetic protagonist, who cannot find a way out of his everyday misery (178), is akin to such characters as Estragon or Vladimir.