The Sandbox

Edward Albee's one act about the passage from life to death of an American grandmother illustrates several of what I believe to be aspects of its genre.

The characters are slightly illogical, though grounded in Albee's observations about human behavior. They portray these observations in a very simplistic way -- the father is a wimp, the mother is a bitch and Grandma's just crazy. Or, so they appear. Through their somewhat illogical dialogue, snippets of the truths of these characters shine through.

Setting is also a key element in absurdist theatre. Using a humorously minimal set, Albee creates a world based on reality but more resembling that of dreams. The use of a sandbox as a beach as the grandmother's final resting place in itself sparks humor, questions and discomfort.

Paradox and the breaking of the fourth wall operate heavily in this play as well, most notably in the case of the "Angel of Death." The Angel of Death is a strapping young lad doing calisthenics on the beach - his head as empty as it is blond. It is ironic that the great equivocator is portrayed in such a vapid and ordinary way. Also, Albee breaks the fourth wall in the final dialogue between the Angel and the grandmother when he makes references to the boy simply being an actor playing a role, asking if he'd done his lines correctly.

The viewer is left with only a vague sense of understanding of the events that were captured in the play and an overwhelming feeling of disorientation.

Introduction to this blog and, of course, Waiting for Godot:

This blog was created as part of a two-part, ongoing assignment in Creative Writing: Hybrid Genres, a course at Moore College of Art & Design. In this blog, I will collect and reflect upon research focused on the genre, absurdist theatre.

I chose this genre because I have had an interest in it for a long time, some of my favorite playwrights being Edward Albee, Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco. The use of farce as a disguise for cuttingly accurate social criticism and philosophical musing is a particularly interesting entity. The absurdist play, as I understand it today, acts for me in the same way Shakespeare's Touchstone, the court jester from As You Like It does: able to make light of the true and serious shortcomings of the world without fear of punishment because the criticism is packaged in the disguise of foolery.

Perhaps the most iconic work of absurdist theatre is Beckett's tragicomedy, Waiting For Godot. This vaudevillian slapstick work takes the viewer totally out of the realms of tangible and logical reality by eliminating the recognizable elements of its setting and narrative structure. Ever playing on ambiguity, Beckett shows us the bleak world of characters Vladimir and Estragon, fools in the tradition of Chaplin, as they laugh, argue and contemplate suicide at the side of what is believed to be a road. 

The mastery in this work is evident in the meticulously calculated nonsense that pervades the dialogue and the plot of the play. Each line seems a nonsequitor or simply potty humor, but really suggests various sadder truths about humanity's search for validity in the universe. Based on the existentialist idea that existence preceeds essence, Waiting for Godot asks us to question the concept of faith, comparing it to the foolishness of Vladimir and Estragon's waiting by the roadside. 

The play ends in the same place it began with no satisfying resolution for the plot-hungry audience, suggesting that there is not earthly resolution to the question of faith, or that the faithful are merely and foolishly wasting their time while the rest of the world passes by. Amidst this heavy discussion, however, the audience is treated to a hefty dose of the absurd and the hilarious. We laugh when the fool proclaims that he will commit suicide then changes his mind because he cannot determine a satisfying way to hang himself. The seeming interchangeability of Vladimir and Estragon and the ridiculous pomp & circumstances of Pozzo invoke humor in those perhaps identifying those in their own lives whose traits resemble these characters'.