Why are Sammuel Beckett's Plays so Wierd?

Question

In class we studied the following plays:
Catastrophe
Breath
Ohio Impromptu
and
Come and Go

And our assignment is to eplain Beckett's use of bleakness, silence, and ambiguity, with reference to specific works...

First off I really didn't get the plays... So where do I start??????

Answer 1

You are still operating under the optimistic view (illusion?) that the world has meaning and purpose.
You will therefore struggle with depictions that suggest the true view of the world is dark and empty.
(And best faced with a good dose of laughter at the sheer absurdity of it all!)

Others have spotted the emptiness and the darkness, but most individuals duck or deny this viewpoint.

"... life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" Shakespeare, Macbeth.

"The universe, as has been observed before, is an unsettlingly big place, a fact which for the sake of a quiet life most people tend to ignore.
Many would happily move to somewhere rather smaller of their own devising, and this is what most beings in fact do." Douglas Adams, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Kurtz... "The horror, the horror..."
(Heart of Darkness or Apocalypse Now.)

Beckett's "Endgame"
Hamm: "We're not beginning to... to... mean something?
Clov: "Mean something! You and I mean something! (Brief laugh.) Ah that's a good one!"