Absurd Drama is an anthology of four important plays associated with the Theatre of the Absurd: Eugène Ionesco's Amédée or How to Get Rid of It, Arthur Adamov's Professor Taranne, Fernando Arrabal's The Two Executioners and Edward Albee's The Zoo Story. Ionesco's play transforms an increasingly grotesque domestic situation into an exploration of marriage, guilt and the irrational; Adamov examines the disintegration of identity and certainty; Arrabal presents a disturbing drama of violence, authority and family relationships; and Albee's celebrated one-act play stages an unsettling encounter between two strangers in New York's Central Park. Together the four plays illustrate characteristic features of absurdist theatre, including breakdowns in communication, alienation, uncertainty, dark humour and the search for meaning in an apparently irrational world. The volume includes an introduction by influential theatre critic Martin Esslin, whose writings helped establish the concept of the Theatre of the Absurd. This Penguin Plays edition is a useful anthology for readers interested in modern drama, experimental theatre and major twentieth-century playwrights.

Eugène Ionesco Arthur Adamov Fernando Arrabal Edward Albee Martin Esslin (Introduction)

Absurd Drama