The New Theater

Abstract

THE PARTICULAR KIND of theater with which we are concerned is that in which two or three characters meet for the purpose of talking to themselves. This situation is seen in the plays of Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Edward Albee—and even in the late play by Eugene O’Neill called Hughie.¹ It is a trend in contemporary theater, and Pinter is its English representative; and it is the trend that, it seems to me, has most to say and do in the so-called revival of the British theater. There have been, of course, so many revivals in that perennial institution that it is difficult to believe that the theater had time to fade and die between them. The recent important revivals can be summed up, with varying adequacy, under the three headings of “Poetic,” “Angry,” and “Absurd” and all three have also been concerned with the physical aspects of the theater—from the kind of stage to be used to such minor details as the abolition of footlights and curtains.

“At any streetcorner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.”—Camus