The features of his drama directly and indirectly influenced contemporaries such as French playwright Jean Tardieu and Lebanese playwright Georges Sche-hade, as well as many of the innovative playwrights that emerged in his wake, including Spanish playwright Fernando Arrabal, French playwrights Rene de Obaldia and Rolland Dubillard, English playwright Harold Pinter, and American playwright Sam Shepard.

Works in Critical Context

Faulted as obscure by many critics at the beginning of his career, Ionesco’s innovative drama has gained international acclaim, and a number of his works are now considered founding pieces of the Theater of the Absurd. His numerous accolades speak to the nature of this acclaim. Internationally, Ionesco was the recipient of many prestigious awards, including the Jerusalem Prize (1973), the Max Rheinhard Medal (1976), Germany’s Order of Merit (1982), the University of Chicago’s T. S. Eliot-Ingersoll Prize (1985), the Medal of the City of Paris (1987), and the Moliere Prize (1989). In 1970 he was elected to the Academie française; he received the great Austrian Award for European Literature, and he was presented an honorary doctorate by the University of Tel-Aviv. In 1991 he became the first author whose work was published in the prestigious Editions Pleiade while still alive.

Rhinoceros Ionesco’s three-act play Rhinoceros (produced and published 1959; translated as Rhinoceros, 1960), generally considered to be his masterpiece, has been performed to acclaim throughout the world. Adapted for the stage from his 1957 short story of the same title, it premiered in Paris at the state-subsidized Odeon-Theaˆtre de France under the direction of Jean-Louis Barrault, and ‘‘put the playwright on the international theatrical map,’’ according to American critic Mel Gussow. The English version of the play was directed by Orson Welles and starred Laurence Olivier. Dramas like this were ‘‘called anti-theatre by many critics, despite the fact that all the theatrical elements are included,’’ according to reviewers Jacques Guicharnaud and June Beckel-man. However, as Guicharnaud and Beckelman go on to say, ‘‘such farce might be better termed Theatre en liberte or liberated theatre, the mirror of the world as a nonsensical mechanism, mad in its ways, and thus giving the playwright complete freedom to indulge his fantasies.’’

Responses to Literature

1. Discuss the way language is portrayed in the Theater of the Absurd. Do you find that language is inherently ‘‘problematic’’? Explain your views citing specific examples from one of Ionesco’s plays.

2. In Rhinoceros, Ionesco explores the theme of how conformity can be dangerous. Drawing from the play, discuss your views about conforming. Do you think conforming can be a good thing? Is there such a thing as being too individualistic?

3. Using your library’s resources and the Internet, research the beliefs behind the Theater of the Absurd. Write an essay that defines those principles and explains how you feel about them and the art they create.

4. The Theater of the Absurd developed starting in the late 1940s. What was going on in the world at that time that might lead to this view of life? Write an essay analyzing world events and how they might have influenced this movement.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Books

Dobrez, Livio A. C. The Existential and Its Exits: Literary and Philosophical Perspectives on the Works of Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, and Pinter. London: Athlone, 1986.

Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd. New York: Doubleday, 1968.

Gaensbauer, Deborah B. The French Theatre of the Absurd. Boston: Twayne, 1991.

Lamont, Rosette C., and Melvin J. Friedman. The Two Faces of Ionesco. Troy, N. Y.: Whitston, 1978.

Lane, Nancy. Understanding Eugene Ionesco. Columbia:

University of South Carolina Press, 1994. Wellwarth, George E. The Theatre of Protest and

Paradox: Developments in the Avant-Garde Drama.

New York: New York University Press, 1971. Wulbern, J. H. Brecht and Ionesco: Commitment in Context.

Carbondale: University of Southern Illinois Press, 1971.

Periodicals

Karampetsos, E. D. ‘‘Ionesco and the Journey of the Shaman.’’ Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 4 (April 1983): 64–77.

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