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Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd: Camus, Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, and Pinter. By Bennett. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011; pp. 179 + xi. $80 cloth.

Patrick M. Konesko

Theatre Survey / Volume 54 / Issue 01 / January 2013, pp 159 ­ 161DOI: 10.1017/S0040557412000531, Published online: 03 January 2013

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0040557412000531

How to cite this article:Patrick M. Konesko (2013). Theatre Survey, 54, pp 159­161 doi:10.1017/S0040557412000531

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and finally considers the personal relationships that provided sources for his char-acters and dramatic explorations. The volume ends with “On O’Neill’s‘Philosophical Anarchism,’” an exceptional essay by Dowling that weaves socio-cultural and biographical history with play analysis to explore the definition of phi-losophical anarchism and how O’Neill both related to and endorsed the concept.Originally written for the 2006 American Library Association conference (fromwhich the idea for this volume stems) and expanded for inclusion here, this pro-vocative and insightful essay serves the collection as an effective conclusion,drawing as it does on all of the major ideas expressed throughout to successfullyarticulate O’Neill’s sociophilosophical identity as shaped by his historical and per-sonal context. The volume also includes one appendix, a chronology of O’Neill’slife and work. Detailed without being overwhelming, this timeline would never-theless benefit from the inclusion of information regarding the sociocultural eventsand the individuals who influenced O’Neill’s development in order to fit thevolume’s expressed intention better.

The breadth of topics and approaches contained in Eugene O’Neill and HisEarly Contemporaries, the quality of the book’s essays, and the effective structur-ing of this project’s overall narrative fulfill its editors’ objectives. By examiningboth O’Neill through his milieu and vice versa, the volume contributes to andexceeds the boundaries of current O’Neill and Modernist scholarship. It providesa welcome addition to biographical and literary studies of O’Neill as well as to thestudy of early-twentieth-century theatre, culture, and society.

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Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd: Camus, Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, andPinter. By Michael Y. Bennett. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011; pp. 179+ xi. $80 cloth.doi:10.1017/S0040557412000531

Reviewed by Patrick M. Konesko, Bowling Green State University

Since its publication in 1961, Martin Esslin’s The Theatre of the Absurd hasdominated critical reception of those playwrights he designated “absurdist.”Whilemany scholars have qualified, revised, and even completely repudiated Esslin’sclaims, The Theatre of the Absurd perseveres as a landmark text in dramatic scho-larship. In Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd: Camus, Beckett, Ionesco, Genet,and Pinter, Michael Bennett turns Esslin’s text on its head to offer more nuanced,more hopeful analyses of these canonical playwrights. Ultimately, he suggests thatinstead of being labeled “Theatre of the Absurd,” the works of these artists shouldbe classified as “parabolic drama” (3). This move, he argues, refreshes the dis-course on these plays by approaching them with an eye toward the structure, meta-phor, and paradox of parables.

In “Introduction: Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd,” Bennett points outtwo critical flaws in Esslin’s formulation. First, he argues that Esslin mistranslates

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and miscontextualizes a quote by Ionesco, resulting in the misstatement of one ofEsslin’s core “absurdist” criteria. Second, he argues that Esslin misreads Camus asan existentialist. In outlining this second point, Bennett turns to Camus’s The Mythof Sisyphus, an essay foundational to Esslin’s thinking. For Bennett, the purpose ofthe essay is the reminder that, “[i]f we accept our situation as absurd . . . then wecan revolt against the absurd and create meaning and purpose for ourselves” (11).In offering this alternative reading of Camus, Bennett makes theoretical space forhis construction of a parabolic drama of perseverance and meaning making.

Bennett breaks his study into four chapters that address each of the play-wrights (with the exception of Arthur Adamov) given previous chapter-lengthtreatment by Esslin; in order, these are “The Parable of Estragon’s Struggle withthe Boot in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot”; “The Pinteresque OedipalHousehold: The Interrogation Scene(s) in The Birthday Party”; “The Parable ofthe White Clown: The Use of Ritual in Jean Genet’s The Blacks: A ClownShow”; and “Berenger, the Sisyphean Hero.” Each of these chapters begins withinformation about the given play’s initial production and reception, as well as adiscussion of Esslin’s treatment of each in The Theatre of the Absurd. Fromthere, Bennett moves into a thematic textual analysis focusing on parable.

Of the plays discussed by Esslin in The Theatre of the Absurd, Waiting forGodot is perhaps the most well known and oft analyzed. Indeed, the prominencegiven by Esslin to this play is reflected by its position in scholarly literature moregenerally. Because of this prominence, Bennett’s first chapter offers, perhaps, themost significant example of his “parabolic” reworking of the canon. Furthermore,it serves to orient the reader to Bennett’s implementation of parabolic analysis.Bennett opens the chapter with a brief look at the symbolism of the absent Godot.He points out that while there is no agreed-upon reading, the figuration of Godotas God is perhaps most prominent. Bennett argues that, “If God or a savior is notjust hinted at and never comes, but is actually present in this play, . . . then lifehas not lost all meaning and the Theatre of the Absurd does not necessarily representthe absurdity of the human condition” (29). For Bennett, the idea of a god/savior isultimately not found in the character of Godot, but rather in the companionship of thetwo tramps—each one acting as savior for the other. This mutual relationship, saysBennett, is represented by the two-part structure of the boot parable: the first part, theorientation, finds the audience sympathizing with Estragon’s desire to remove theboot, to free himself from “that which ties him to the base earth” (37). The secondpart of the parable, the turn, is the lesson that the abstract concept of “hope” (rep-resented by the desire to remove the boot) is a dead end; instead, the two trampsneed to find in each other that which makes life meaningful.

In this chapter and those that follow, Bennett employs parabolic logic tooffer a hopeful rereading of the canonical Theatre of the Absurd. His“Conclusion: Theorizing a ‘Female Absurd’ in Beth Henley’s Crimes of theHeart as a Means of Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd,” extends his parabolicframework to more contemporary dramatic literature. Furthermore, it demonstratesthe effectiveness of his work in opening the Theatre of the Absurd to, amongothers, female playwrights. Following his conclusion, he also offers twoaddenda—“Defining the Parable” and “Parables in Drama”—designed,

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seemingly, to avoid weighing down the body of his text and his argument withsupplemental information. In one sense, these addenda act as primers for thosewho have limited experience with parable: they track related changes in scholar-ship and point to how these changes have broadened the term’s definition tosuch an extent that it has started to lose meaning. Additionally, the addendaserve to contextualize and define Bennett’s use of parable as a concept throughout.Even without these additions, Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd is an acces-sible study; their inclusion, however, expands its potential readership and allowsfor different levels of reader engagement with, and points of access to, the text.

Bennett’s hopeful rereading of the Theatre of the Absurd is largely success-ful. Not only does he offer provocative, convincing readings of these plays, he alsobroadens his analysis to include works by contemporaries of the original “absur-dists,” and by those of different historical moments and/or gender. This move notonly extends his interpretive framework beyond the oft covered territory that is thefocus of this book, it also extends the life of his analysis.

Bennett’s work is strengthened by the fact that his writing style is approach-able and his work well signposted. My one reservation about this study is that hefocuses almost entirely on close readings of dramatic literature. Throughout, Iwondered how his analysis would change with more consideration of theatre asa living art; the inclusion of such a perspective, however, might be well outsidethe scope of his stated project. Previously, when discussing this style of theatre,I was guilty myself of resorting to tired aphorisms about the absurdity of existence.Though I knew these to be troubling oversimplifications at best, I had no othervocabulary with which to discuss these works. Bennett’s text offers this alternativevocabulary, along with a much richer, more hopeful perspective on the subject.

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The Politics of Jean Genet’s Late Theatre: Spaces of Revolution. By CarlLavery. Theatre: Theory–Practice–Performance. Manchester: ManchesterUniversity Press, 2010; pp. 272, 5 illustrations. $90 cloth.doi:10.1017/S0040557412000543

Reviewed by Matthew Yde, The Ohio State University

In his excellent new book on Jean Genet, Carl Lavery contends that Genet isone of the most “politically relevant” (212) modernist playwrights, and persuasivelyargues that critics who view, for instance, The Screens as “an essentially absurdist ornihilistic work that uses the Algerian war as a ploy for Genet to explore his uniquebrand of metaphysics of abjection and negation” (178) are missing the historical sig-nificance and revolutionary potential of Genet’s political aesthetics. Indeed, whereasit is doubtful that an avowedly didactic playwright like Brecht has had any directeffect on revolutionary politics, Lavery believes Roger Blin’s 1966 production ofThe Screens “caused a political event which contributed to a process of dissensus,which culminated in the events of May 1968. . . . Genet allowed the war to insinuate

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