Theatre essays

To confine is to keep or restrict someone or something within certain limits. Confines are defined as borders or boundaries of a place, especially with regard to their restricting freedom. Freedom is defined as the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. In “A Doll House by Henrick Ibsen and “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell it is determined that confines and freedoms can be those of a home, one’s self, and/or of marriage....

This essay will analyse and discuss the duality of pairing, doubling and binary oppositions in Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’. Waiting for Godot is an ambiguity which permits for a variety of readings, the play consisting of many interpretations that can exist alongside one another without being jointly exclusive. Duality is an important part of the play as it permits the use of foils, through the use of foils it highlights the practice of these doublings or pairings, to demonstrate...

In the World War II, People lost their almost everything and the there is a gloomy life in thisperiod. Some play writers transferred this into literature by writing theatre, novel and poem. After all lived things, The Theatre of the Absurd showed up. The Theatre of the Absurd (French:théâtre de l'absurde[teɑtʁ(ə) də lapsyʁd]) is a post– World War II designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1950s, as well...

The “Theatre of the Absurd” was a dramatic philosophic movement in France during the 1950s. This metaphysical theory was thought to be influenced by World War II considering that the Nazi’s were infiltrating France. With people feeling hopeless to the inhumane treatment of other’s it is hard to think that there is a meaning to life. “Absurd” is a term in philosopher Albert Camus’s work that “refers to the contradiction between humanity’s quest to find meaning in the Universe and...

With no apparent meaning, people attempt to impose meaning on it through patterned behaviour and fabricated purposes to distract from the fact that their situation is hopelessly unfathomable. Samuel Beckett’s 1950s play Waiting for Godot captures this feeling and view of the world, characterising it with archetypes symbolising humanity and its behaviour when faced with this knowledge. The protagonists, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly for an unchanging situation to change, wasting time with mindless distractions. Beckett’s play is arguably the...

“Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett and “The Goat” by Edward Albee are plays characterised by their genre-bending approach to storytelling. In the tradition of tragedy and comedy, both authors focalise on producing an emotional response in their audiences in a manner that recalls Barthes' “Death of the Author”. Beckett’s play seeks to expose reality to be in perpetuum, “a random continuum of phenomena, devoid of any meaningful design” (Counsell, 112). Within the theatre of the absurd that Waiting for...

“Where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.” ( Beckett ………..) There is no doubt that the absurd playwrights are looking for ways to discover the new meaning of life from the apparent inconsistency, meaninglessness and uncertainty of the world through their plays. In addition, it happens through the interaction of the play and audience – deep inside the audience’s minds. Distinguished...

Absurd drama is a play that takes the shape of man's response to a world clearly without meaning or man as a puppet. It tells the response of people without goal and direction. A form of drama that emphasizes the absurdity of human presence by employing disconnected, monotonous, and meaningless dialogue, purposeless and befuddling circumstances, and plots that need reasonable or logical development. Waiting for Godot is an absurd drama. In reality, the absurd drama presents human life and human...

VLADIMIR: […] the best would be to take advantage of Pozzo’s calling for help – POZZO: Help! VLADIMIR: To help him – ESTRAGON: We help him? VLADIMIR: In anticipation of some tangible return. ESTRAGON: And suppose he – VLADIMIR: Let us not waste our time in idle discourse! [Pause. Vehemently.] Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case...

The distinction of clock time and subjective time is one of the themes found in Waiting For Godot. Time in the play is subject to one’s mental condition. Didi and Gogos’ perception of time differs from other characters, as they doubt their very own concept of time. This leads them to doubt their very own existence. Actions are meaningless to them, their time does not flow with others, their very own existence can be mistaken for one of their dreams,...

Many question the relativity and the importance of philosophical theories and actions expressed throughout various philosophical works. Many also elude the perception of humanism. In Existentialist Philosophy (EP) by Nathan Oaklander, in the text from Albert Camus, it had stated, “Men, too, secrete the inhuman. At certain moments of lucidity, the mechanical aspect of their gestures, their meaningless pantomime makes silly everything that surrounds them” (p. 359). This is in relation to Camus and to Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot...

One of the most prominent themes throughout Beckett’s works is the passage of time. This essay will explore the presentation of the passage of time in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Molloy. The characters in these works are utterly constrained by the ways in which time passes, has passed and will continue to pass; from Vladimir and Estragon who are condemned to spend their lives waiting for a person that may not even exist, to Molloy and Moran who find...

Before Eastern Theatre was established there was a beginning. The Origin of theatre, to our knowledge, began in Africa. To be specific, “The first known dramatic presentations occurred in northern Africa, alongside the Nile River in ancient Egypt, as much as five thousand years ago, possibly as early as 3300 B.C” (Cohen, 188). This is such an important calculation because it solidifies that our civilization has yearned for understanding even in Ancient times. That leads to the two main premises...

There are many jobs in the performing arts ranging from acting and dancing to producing plays, teaching and handling finances. Jobs in the performing arts can have good pay and depends on what you do. Jobs within the performing arts industry are split up into 3 categories: performers, production and administrative. Job roles within the performance sector consist of dancers, singers, actors, musicians, acrobats, magicians, comedians and many more. Roles in the production sector are choreographers, script writers and technicians....

Worlds of Upheaval demonstrate not only the conflict between two ideas but that of social and political strife and allow readers into a world of multiple perspectives. Worlds of Upheaval offer many diverse perspectives on renewal while simultaneously challenging literary conventions this is demonstrated through texts such as the play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, the film Metropolis by Fritz Lang and the novel The Road by John Hillcoat. Waiting for Godot illustrates the conflict between spiritual and philosophical...

In the dramatic play “Trifles” written by Susan Glaspell, it goes through without specifically stating the cultural diversity in the 1900’s that women had to face. Although, it presents itself as to how the men back in the day believed that the tasks and job duties their wives and other women did and anything regarding their own thoughts were not necessarily important. In fact, the men basically considered that the women had very little to no meaning and their roles...