Theatre of the Absurd
What’s that again? Let’s start us off with a Theatre Database quote:
“The ‘Theatre of the Absurd’ is a term coined by Hungarian-born critic Martin Esslin, who made it the title of his 1962 book on the subject. The term refers to a particular type of play which first became popular during the 1950s and 1960s and which presented on stage the philosophy articulated by French philosopher Albert Camus in his 1942 essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, in which he defines the human condition as basically meaningless.”
Ah, yes, the French and their ability to write about the meaninglessness of life. (Well sure, in fairness, not all absurdists are from France, but it seems to be a major hub for that sort of thing).
As ridiculous as it might sound, the Theatre of the Absurd has its roots in pretty serious events. Many of the playwrights who are categorized as absurdists (e.g., Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet) draw directly from their experiences of war, fascism, and mass destruction that took place in Europe before and during World War II.
Pause! A brief public service announcement regarding labels: most writers do not like being labeled as one particular thing or another. Ionesco and Beckett and others didn’t give themselves the name of absurdists, and many of the writers who fall into that category never liked to call their style of theatre, “Theatre of the Absurd.” Point taken.
But hey, history has deemed them as such, and Rhinoceros fits the criteria. Theatre of the Absurd strays from the realism of playwrights like Henrik Ibsen and throws us into a world where people can turn into rhinoceroses by choice and one man is left to stand alone against a legion of horned animals.
The Logician sums up the meaningless of life in a particularly absurdist fashion when he says to the grieving Housewife, “What do you expect, Madame? All cats are mortal! One must accept that.” (1.1.853-854) Cold comfort for a cat-lover.
Turning to logic, as logicians are wont to do, he completely removes emotion from the game. Everything living will someday die, so why bother getting upset over death when it occurs? Sounds like a dog guy to us.
Anyway, his way of looking at things can seem like a bleak view, but it’s a useful one in the Theatre of the Absurd. Plus, one could even apply it to the end of the play. As Berenger yells that he will fight all of the rhinoceroses, we get the sense that it is not a fight he will come even close to winning, so what's the point?
Remember, though, Ionesco doesn’t necessarily say Berenger’s stand is utterly meaningless. Making a stand might be all we can do even if we are destined to fail. As we see in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, which is literally about waiting for someone who never shows up, sometimes life simply is doing something even when you know there is no hope of success or change.