I’ve been heartily enjoying a read of Martin Esslin’s landmark book The Theatre of the Absurd. It’s a bit embarrassing that I haven’t read it before, actually. (Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that when I was studying theater in college, my theater history professor believed that the only post-Shakespearean theater worth mentioning was described in the diary of Samuel Pepys; we barely made it to the end of the 17th Century.) In any case, Esslin’s book, first published in 1961, is a surprisingly fresh investigation of the trends in theater he observed (and coined) as “Absurd,” including the works of Beckett, Ionesco, Pinter, and Genet.
In many ways, reading this book is like finding a long-lost, annotated family tree. My own searching, investigative approach to performance seems to fit squarely within this lineage of “the absurd.” I am at once comforted by a sense of belonging and challenged to aspire to the greatness of these artists. Yet, at the same time, there is a nagging question: Where are the women?
I’m not suggesting that all of these men (and there are many discussed in the book, not just the headline names) don’t deserve as much attention as they receive. I’m just curious if there were ANY women exploring similar work. Did the social structures of the ’40s and ’50s mean that the women were overlooked, or did the social structures keep them out of the game entirely? To stretch my family tree metaphor, I feel like I’m missing an important piece of my own lineage. Forefathers are important, but foremothers are too. (Is “foremothers” even a word?)
