Theatre of the Absurd
The Theatre of the Absurd (French: Théâtre de l'Absurde) is a designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1950s, as well as one for the style of theatre which has evolved from their work. Their work expressed the belief that human existence has no meaning or purpose and therefore all communication breaks down. Logical construction and argument gives way to irrational and illogical speech and to its ultimate conclusion, silence.
Critic Martin Esslin coined the term in his 1960 essay "Theatre of the Absurd." He related these plays based on a broad theme of the Absurd, similar to the way Albert Camus uses the term in his 1942 essay, "The Myth of Sisyphus". The Absurd in these plays takes the form of man’s reaction to a world apparently without meaning, and/or man as a puppet controlled or menaced by invisible outside forces. Though the term is applied to a wide range of plays, some characteristics coincide in many of the plays: broad comedy, often similar to Vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism and the concept of the "well-made play".
Playwrights commonly associated with the Theatre of the Absurd include Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Jean Genet, Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Fernando Arrabal, Václav Havel and Edward Albee.
Is it not true that our political scene has evolved (or degenerated) into a rare form of this idea?
We have the House of Representatives (what a joke that name is!) controlled by people who have only one objective and that is to make sure the government actually resembles the myths they have repeated over the years in order to remove it from impeding the agenda of the ruling oligarchs. So they now decide to go a step further (back) and use the people's tax money to further hurt those very taxpayers.
There is a sick humor in all this but it still is little more than bad theater. Read on if you want to get a broader perspective on why this is so.
First of all, the republicans are too easy a target. Their agenda is clear and they are relatively successful.
What about us? What are we contributing to this mess? Clearly we are relatively powerless. How are we handling that?
The President, far too late in the game, has begun to act on his own. That is good.
Harry Reid much to late in the game began to try to reform the Senate rules and actually got some things done.
Frankly I think Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are the only two people in government that actually are trying to educate the public about where we need to go. They get far too little support from the Democratic party.
That brings me to the sore point I have tried to speak to in diaries many times before. We are in a very bad situation in so many ways. The people are suffering, the water, food and soil are poisoned, Global warming and climate change are accelerating in ways no one predicted.
So how does the Democratic Party respond? It does what it is there to do. It raises money and supports candidates for elections.
My question is this:If our wildest hopes were to come true (which they clearly won't) what will that do to help us solve the problems of the country and the world? Where is the program that will unify the country and get it moving forward?
I remember words like "change" and "hope" a while back. They were theater too. It all is theater and theater will not do the job.
I, for one, do not need a weatherman to see which way the wind is blowing. It is a VERY ill wind at that.