"Deaths and Entrances". Burton Taylor Studio
When the world goes mad, the Absurdist is full of business. Camus, Ionesco, Beckett et al discovered their nonsensical métier as Europe awoke, stunned, from the ravages of the Second World War. Two confused men wandering through a blasted wilderness was an image, back then, that people could relate to from their own experiences of bombed wastelands and aimless refugees. Millions were like Estragon and Vladimir from Waiting for Godot , dressed in rags, clinging to half-remembered vestiges of high culture, wondering where to go. You can’t find meaning in a chaotic and indifferent universe. The Absurdists, rather than going on a fruitless hunt for a higher purpose, embraced the futility of existence and turned it into a kind of freedom, unshackled from any traditional idea of normality. I wonder what it says about the world of 2026 that Absurdism is back and thriving on the Oxford stage. Already this term we’ve had Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons and You Got Me , both...