Using simple words, what is the theatre of the absurd?

Question

i'm a teacher and i'm going to introduce to my students this term for the first time. how can i explain it to them without confusing them! Thanks!

Answer 1

Mike is right, but here are some charecteristics common to absurdist plays.

Circular structures- the play ends seeming like it could start all over again.

Mass Accumulation- often times objects, charecters, sounds and such will keep on being added as the play progresses, for example Ionesco's "The Chairs" chairs are added to the room in preperation for a big speach eventually they run out of space for them so chairs are stacked on chairs and then stacked on stacks of chairs and so on.

Pointless dialouge- actors talk about things that have nothing to do with the story or plot if there even is a plot.

Lack of explaination- the reason odd things happen like people turning in to rhinoceroses, or who this Godot person the folks in Beckett are waiting for, or who the random actor who walked on stage looking for cheese is and why he wanted cheese or had anything to do with the play.

Speeding up- typically abusridst plays start slow and end with a lot of energy (2nd acts are often half the length of the 1st)

Finally it deals with existentialism, which can be poorly summed up "anything we do is meaningless because we die"

there are a couple more charecteristics I forget but I hope this helps.

Answer 2

It is plays showing that life is absurd, without meaning unless one finds it in oneself. In the plays the characters do not have the traditional stage resolution, but the audience sees more than the characters do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_of_the_Absurd
In Waiting For Godot, two people based on vaudeville characters are waiting in a featureless landscape for someone they don't understand. A stranger and his servant/slave come through the scene twice for no reason, the second time the stranger has been beaten and blinded and doesn't know why.
I played Pozzo - the stranger - in a college production, and although he comes across as obnoxious and the audience might suspect the reasons for his beating were because of his attitude, he clearly arouses sympathy for the bewilderment at his situation.

Answer 3

Theatre of the absurd:

~Heighten people in abstract situations, must be
informative, over all makes you think.

~Purpose is to provoke thought with laughter.

~always has intense moments.

~can't look like conventional theater.

~ Has no start, no middle and no end.