Characteristics of the Absurdist Theatre

Cited as one of the chief examples of American absurdism. It strips the illusion and identifies the meaninglessness of life.
1. As an Absurdist, Albee believed that a life of illusion was wrong because it created a false content of life, just as George and Martha's marriage evolves arounds an imagenary son. In Albee's view, reality lacks any deeper meaning and George and Martha must come to face that by abandoning illusion.
Creates a specular effect with a lack of linear plot according to their capacity to act
The fragmentation of the play shifts between scenes (there is "no character", "no scene", "no fact", "no language"
Contributes to Social-Political moments that shapes the characters with puns, ironic twists and comic reliefs
This genre was popular in the 1950s and '60s, when religion lost prominence and the threat of nuclear annihilation was new.
Edward Albee
1. The Zoo Story - it sounds so normal and innocent from the title, right? Maybe it's about a family's trip to their local zoo. Maybe they see some monkeys or tigers. Maybe they have popcorn. Alas, no. The Zoo Story is an absurdist one-act play written by Edward Albee. And there are no monkeys or popcorn. The Zoo Story premiered in 1959, making it Albee's first performed play.
Unlike non-absurd plays, these plays usually lack things like plot and character development. They highlight humanity's pointlessness and isolation. There's a lot of standing around, doing very little, often in bizarre situations. If things happen, they happen for no reason. The message is basically that life has no purpose or meaning. We're just here for a while, we try to communicate, often failing, but we're mostly alone. Then we die.
Theater of the Absurd applies to a group of plays with a certain set of characteristics. These characteristics convey a sense of bewilderment, anxiety, and wonder in the face of an unexplainable feeling. These plays all have unusual actions and are missing a key element that would clearly define other pieces of literature. Language and actions differ from the usual and sometimes cannot be explained in the Theater of the Absurd. In the works of Albee and Ionesco language, behavior, and structure are abnormal if compared to other plays. Language is a key factor that is presented as a weak form of communication
Even though Albee's Who's Afraid of' Virginia Woolf would not be strictly classified as belonging to the movement known as "The Theater of the Absurd," there are, however, a great many elements of this play which are closely aligned with or which grew out of the dramas which are classified as being a part of "The Theater of the Absurd." Furthermore, the movement emerged on the literary scene just prior to and during the beginning of Albee's formative, creative years.
1. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? also utilizes many of the techniques and ideas of his earlier plays, for example, the lost or non-existent child is a constant factor in many of Albee's plays of all periods.
To begin, even though the movement known as the Theater of the Absurd was not a consciously conceived movement, and it has never had any clear cut philosophical doctrines, no organized attempt to win converts, and no meetings, it has characteristics which set it apart from other experiments in drama. Each of the main playwrights of the movement seemed to have developed independently of the other. The playwrights most often connected with the movement are Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, and Arthur Adamov. The early plays of Edward Albee and Harold Pinter fit into this classification, but they have also written plays that move far away from the Theater of the Absurd.

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Characteristics of the Absurdist Theatre

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	Created by Luciano Longo almost 12 years ago