Why we love Theatre of the Absurd!

WHY WE LOVE THE THEATRE OF THE ABSURD!

THE NIGHT BEFORE is a contemporary reflection of a loose theatre movement that began in the wake of World War 2.  In the ashes of those horrific events, many traditional beliefs had been annihilated, and for many disillusioned people in England and Europe, there was an overwhelming sense that life had lost meaning and purpose.  The old certainties were gone, resulting in an absence of faith that made the future feel profoundly hopeless.

In this shattered world, several playwrights emerged whose work reflected the spiritual milieu of the time – the most well-known being Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, and Jean Genet.  These independent writers (later defined as the 'absurdists') rejected popular theatre realism for disordered plots, chaotic worlds, unexplained motivations, and words that fractured understood meanings.  In these plays, order cannot be restored and existence can only to be endured, suggesting that any human attempt to find meaning was futile and yet we must go on living anyway.  These bleak themes were often presented as tragicomedy (a genre blending tragedy and comedy), with humour ranging from dark gallows to farce, and the effect was liberating for its audiences, who were both entertained and disturbed in equal measure.

Where people in post-war Europe faced the consequences of the newly created atom bomb and the horror of the Holocaust, our present time sees us facing AI displacing careers, the nuclear threat more at risk of destroying the world than any time in history, and the growing fundamental unawareness men and women have for each other.  We are once again in a time of courage and despair, where so many old certainties have been replaced or subjugated.  Humanity's future is uncertain, and yet we strive forward, generally hopeful that we will not only survive but endure with meaning and purpose.  THE NIGHT BEFORE reflects our own uncertain age and plays in the subversive spirit of the absurdists. 

Life is absurd. 

There may be no inherent meaning beyond what we invent amid the drift. 

There is no clear way out. 

No better plan. 

Only this: 

We go on.

A Pinter‑esque world is full of half‑finished sentences, loaded silences (the 'Pinter pause') and casual menace...