Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd Camus,

Fifty years after the publication of Martin Esslin'sThe Theatre of the Absurd, which suggests that "absurd" plays purport the meaninglessness of life, Michael Y. Bennett'sReassessing the Theatre of the Absurdis a timely reassessment of one of the most important theatre "movements" of the 20th century. Bennett argues that these "absurd" plays are, instead, ethical texts that suggest how life can be made meaningful. Analyzing the works of five major playwrights/writers of the 1950s (including three winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature), Bennett's work challenges fifty years of scholarship though his upbeat and hopeful readings.

Michael Y. Bennett is an Assistant Professor of English in Drama at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. His articles and reviews, primarily on modern and contemporary drama, appear and are forthcoming in numerous journals, including Callaloo, Rhizomes, and Theatre journal. He is also the editor of a collection of essays on Oscar Wilde's Salome (2011).

Introduction: Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd * “The Parable of Estagon’s Struggle with the Boot” in Waiting for Godot * The Pinteresque Oedipal Household: The Interrogation Scene(s) in The Birthday Party * The Parable of the White Clown: The Use of Ritual in Jean Genet’s The Blacks: A Clown Show * Berenger, The Sisyphean Hero * Conclusion: Theorizing a “Female Absurd” in Beth Henley’s Crimes of the Heart as a Means of Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd

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Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd Camus, Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, and Pinter

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