Bald Soprano
The playwright, Eugène Ionesco’s , first play, La Cantatrice Chauve translated into The Bald Soprano in 1956 is considered to have founded the movement known as the theatre of the absurd and Ionesco himself has often been labelled the father of ‘absurdities.’ This particular play, which has upset all conventions, habits and destroyed theatre itself has often been termed an anti-play, because it attacked and ridiculed all conventions of drama, the theatre, logic, language as well as life. Eugène Ionesco constructed this play out of nonsensical sentences, which are used to portray the irrelevance of the daily life led by the British bourgeois society who are deeply rooted in their meaningless lives. All absurdist playwrights like Ionesco often ignored the logical structures of traditional dramatical theatre when writing their plays, which explains why Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano, unlike other usual and non-absurdist plays, is basically about nothing. The characters portrayed, only capable of speaking in banal phrases and clichés are unable to communicate with each other. Lacking deep emotion or feeling of any kind, they often find themselves engaged in pointless chatter without ever really . . .
Therefore, without a plot or a distinct turning point, the play loses all qualities of any normal piece of theatre. Smith’s brainless chattering is full of mundane trivialities and this portrays the surreal relationship between her husband and herself. 21-22) Furthermore, the play lacks structure; the author does not provide the reader with a detailed setting of the play or a very deep insight into the characters or their historical background. The play’s title serves to portray the main theme of theme of the work in that it is totally insignificant and irrelevant to the actions taking part throughout the play. 19) This also adds to the idea that nothing, including time is important nor meaningful. ’ There are also no distinct character traits which enable the reader to distinguish between the various characters and because of this, the Smith ‘couple’ seem interchangeable with the Martin’s. Furthermore, even the notion of time is irrelevant, ‘the clock strikes as much as it likes’ (pg. Martin is speaking, ‘cactus, coccyx! crocus ! … cockroach!’ (pg. 15) Similar to the dialogue taking place between the character, the stage directions are contradictory, much like their words. Martin’s trivial story which everyone finds to be very interesting, “well today when I went shopping to buy some vegetables; which are getting to be dearer and dearer…he was tying his shoelace which had come undone. 14) In addition to interchangeable character and lack of structure, the style of this play which distinguishes it from others and deems it as an absurd anti-play is the little dramatic action which is included. Without any consequential action, or relevant climactic point or even use of suspense, the whole plot is eliminated from the play. The author basically throws a couple into a room from the onset of the work and portrays them as a typical English family having an interesting dinner conversation, which in reality holds little meaning or significance-‘the oil from the grocer…I eat better than you this evening. Therefore, the reader knows little about the play’s characters other than the fact that they are a ‘middle class English family.
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Acceptance Essays
