Eugene Ionesco: PLAYS, Volume IV, 4 (The Rhinoceros, The Leader, The Future is in Eggs, or It Takes All Sorts to Make A World)

IONESCO, Eugene ; Watson, D. (Translated by)

ISBN 10: 0714504629 / ISBN 13: 9780714504629

Published by John Calder (Publishers) Limited, 1960

About this Item

141 pages, a very good paperback. We've other volumes of Eugene Ionesco Plays in stock.

Seller Inventory # 34309

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Eugene Ionesco: PLAYS, Volume IV, 4 (The Rhinoceros, The Leader, The Future is in Eggs, or It Takes All Sorts to Make A World)
• Publisher: John Calder (Publishers) Limited
• Publication Date: 1960
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0714504629
• ISBN 13: 9780714504629
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • LITERATURE

About this title

Synopsis

The early plays of Ionesco are the foundation of what has come to be known as 'the theatre of the absurd', and they remain among his most popular and most often performed work. Written for small theatres, they are increasingly performed in big ones and form an important part of the permanent modern repertory of twentieth century drama. Ionesco's touch is light and depends on his comic but accurate observation of everyday life, and the often surreal situations that occur but often go unnoticed. Ionesco is also adroit at the exploitation of language which can give, distort or negate meaning. Aware of tragedy as of comedy, Ionesco introduces elements of each into the other, so that his blackest plays never lack humour and his most comic ones provoke awareness and insight. 'Amedee' is a corpse which the family has murdered many years previously, which grows and grows in the next room while their whole lives become devoted to hiding it; 'The New Tenant' is a frightening vision of a man moving into a new room which is filled with furniture until he is unable to move; and 'Victims of Duty' is a fast-moving thriller that exploits the detective genre in a new way. All the translations are by Donald Watson who has been associated with Ionesco since the mid-1950s, when the latter first astonished the complacent theatrical scene of those days.

About the Author

Ionesco was one of three new playwrights who emerged in early
1950s France - changing the course of modern theatre. None of them French
by birth - the others being Samuel Beckett and Arthur Adamov - it is to the
Romanian born Ionesco that the label 'absurdist' most properly belongs. He
owes a debt to such surrealists as Roger Vitrac and to Luigi Pirandello,
but his work is based partly on the absurdities he found in language - an
experience common to those who grow up with more than one. Another feature
of his work is his ability to relate visual metaphores and exaggerated
stage pictures to enable audiences to appreciate his meanings as much
through their nerves and intuitions as through their eyes and ears. Like
Pirandello, he too exploited his dreams. In one play his hero gradually
sees all his friends turn into Rhinocerouses; in another a body grows in
the next room as a husband and wife squabble until giant feet crash through
the wall; and in still another, a perfectly planned city becomes the
habitat of a motiveless serial killer. Ionesco's plays are extremely
entertaining and funny - never less so than when they end as tragedies -
which they usually do. He differs from Beckett in his lightness of touch,
and from Adamov in his avoidance of political ideology - although some of
his plays have a strong political content. He was extremely eccentric as a
man as well as a playwright - he lived in constant fear; both of losing his
reputation once it had flourished in the late 1950s, and of death. Much of
his work is based on these and other fears. As well as his plays, we also
publish his only novel 'The Hermit'.