Theatre of the Absurd

I just love the theatre class I have this semester! It's a mix of freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors--some who are artsy (music, theatre) and some who are athletic (football, wrestling), but all of whom are extremely talented performers. We just today finished our performances of excerpts from the absurdist play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. Absurdist theatre can seem to make no sense when reading it (and sometimes when watching it), so my challenge to them was to stage and perform it in such a way that it made sense to them and, as a result, to us as viewers.

They partnered up and chose unusual performance spaces, allowing the peculiarities of these "found" theatre spaces to influence their interpretations of the scene. They did just great. Two pairs used different areas of our classroom for their scenes. One pair had us join them in the courtyard in the middle of the school, then follow them as they wandered the corridors, delivering their lines as in casual conversation to one another as we walked behind them, finally ending up back in the courtyard beneath a giant tree just in time for their lines about a tree! One pair used to their advantage the constriction of the cramped space just outside the superintendent's office beneath the stairwell. Another used the two-story stairwell itself and its height and levels. Another used the elevator!

We ended the performances by going outside and standing on the 50-yard line of the football field. Lying in the stands on the west side was one performer; on the east side was the other. They yelled their lines at each other, gradually crossed the field and met one another in the middle, then continued until they ended up back in the stands on the opposite sides from where they started. It was bizarre to be in the middle of the performance space, and weird to have them yelling, but it really worked to emphasize the confusion and repeated lines by the two characters. And there was an interesting acoustic effect going on that made their voices echo and at the same time slightly amplified them. The overall effect was unusual, funny, and effective.

They all did a great job of deciding how to make nonsensical lines make sense for them and of using within the scene the features of wherever they were performing. Very fun to watch and see how they're learning the fine points of staging a scene and interpreting it and creating characters. Awesome!