The Theatre of the Absurd Might Not Be that Absurd After All. Correct Me if I'm Wrong
What is the theatre of the absurd?
In its essence, the movement boils down to few crucial aspects. Lack of plot and temporal structure, parts of the play that make sense only to highlight the nonsensical rest and breakdown of what we could call the “glue of drama”—communication. In other words, absurdist plays challenge both the rules and function of Classical Greek drama, its unity of time, space, and action (known as Aristotelian unities) as well as its community building function. Importantly, the theatre of the absurd frees itself from symbolic framework such as the need of a resolution, an ending that provides the spectator with emotional catharsis. Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot is pivotal in that sense—it demonstrates the problematic nature of concentrating on the play’s end, the wait for the outcome of things, to the extent that all the preceding parts of a play that lead to it are pointless.