{"id":227,"date":"2016-04-24T16:40:26","date_gmt":"2016-04-24T20:40:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/theater-1504-spring-2016\/?p=227"},"modified":"2016-04-24T16:46:17","modified_gmt":"2016-04-24T20:46:17","slug":"epic-postmodern-and-absurdist-theatre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/theater-1504-spring-2016\/urban-education\/epic-postmodern-and-absurdist-theatre\/","title":{"rendered":"Epic, Postmodern, and Absurdist Theatre"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Love and Information<\/em> by Caryl Churchill is a thought-provoking play that evolves around real life situations and themes that individuals would face throughout their lifetime. Rather than having a linear storyline, the play spontaneously bounces from one scene to the next with different characters. Each scene has it\u2019s own premise that emphasizes and raises questions about morality, justification, and purpose. Churchill\u2019s unique layout of this play is analogous to postmodern, epic, and absurdist theatre, which gives the audience a lot to think about.<\/p>\n

Postmodern plays primarily focus on questioning the norms of modern society; rather than centering on a topic to raise a point, the plays focus on fostering questions about them. These plays are often performed as real life events to make them as true-to-life as possible, but can sometimes involve some surrealism. An instance of this play relating to postmodernism is in the \u201cMessage\u201d scene:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf enough people did it because they don\u2019t really feel terror do they, they don\u2019t live in terror, if they lived in terror they\u2019d be getting the message.
\nWould you do it yourself?
\nI don\u2019t think I would, no.
\nBecause you\u2019re scared?
\nI don\u2019t think that message is what I want to say.\u201d (20).<\/p>\n

In this scene, Caryl is touching on the sensitive topic of terrorism. Instead of bashing terrorism or supporting it, he creates a scenario where two individuals debate over the topic themselves. He raises the question of whether terrorism is the best way to send a message to society. The question is for the audience to answer.<\/p>\n

Epic theatre is similar to postmodern theatre in which both require the audience to analytically view the events on stage. The primary focus of Epic theatre is to ensure that the audience rationally self-reflects on the topics discussed in the play. An example of this could be seen in the \u201cGod\u2019s Voice\u201d Scene:<\/p>\n

\u201cThey came into me.
\nThe words.
\nWhat God said.
\nSo you didn\u2019t exactly hear\u2026?
\nIn my heart.
\nSo how does that work then?
\nI was praying about it.\u201d (29).<\/p>\n

This scene is speaking particularly to theists\u2014someone who believes in a God. Many theists, rather they be Christian, Catholic, or Muslim, often pray to a God and believe that God speaks to them in an unexplainable way. This scene touched on that phenomenon, and in response, theist audience members were expected to reflect on the times they\u2019ve connected with God or reflect on conversations they\u2019ve had with others who\u2019ve done so. Some Postmodern theatre is also relevant. This scene could provoke theist audience members to question or redefine their communication experiences with God and possibly give them a better way to describe the experience to those who\u2019ve never had it.
\nLastly, Absurdist theatre is pertinent all throughout this play. Albert Camus\u2019\u2014a French philosopher who contributed to the absurdist movement\u2014description for Absurdist theatre was when a play depicted a \u201cman\u2019s quest for meaning and truth as a futile endeavor.\u201d In other words, Absurdist plays disprove someone\u2019s ambition to find meaning in the universe because such meaning doesn\u2019t exist. The play doesn\u2019t have many particular instances that gratify absurdism because the entire play portrays human\u2019s actions that don\u2019t have a basis; humans simply do these things because they\u2019re human, they don\u2019t know why. The best example that I could get of Caryl signifying absurdism is in the \u201cIrrational \u201cscene:<\/p>\n

\u201cIs an irrational number real?
\nIt\u2019s real to me.
\nBut can you have an irrational number of oranges?
\nNot as things stand, no.
\nI\u2019m not comfortable with the whole idea.
\nThere was someone called Hippasus in Greek times who found out about the diagonal of a square and they drowned him because no one wanted to know things like that.
\nLike what?<\/p>\n

Numbers that make you uncomfortable and don\u2019t relate to oranges.\u201d (16).
\nIrrational numbers aren\u2019t real numbers, but one character claims that it\u2019s \u201creal\u201d to him. This is relatable to absurdist humour, which usually involves nonsense by a character. The core of absurdism could be seen here because one character is frustratingly trying to understand the purpose of their being irrational number\u2019s, but quickly becomes \u201cuncomfortable\u201d with the idea because humans don\u2019t know the reason why anything is irrational, we simply know that it\u2019s just out of the norm. Caryl then uses an innuendo by telling that character that people, who were \u201cuncomfortable\u201d with the universe being irrational, killed someone who brought that topic up. He\u2019s suggestively saying that people should just learn to live with things being irrational because it\u2019s beyond human comprehension.<\/p>\n

Questions:<\/p>\n

Does Churchill accurately depict conversations that individuals would have?<\/p>\n

Does having different characters in every scene affect the audience\u2019s connection with the characters?<\/p>\n

Do you think Beltrot Brecht had an influence on this play?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Love and Information by Caryl Churchill is a thought-provoking play that evolves around real life situations and themes that individuals would face throughout their lifetime. Rather than having a linear storyline, the play spontaneously bounces from one scene to the next with different characters. Each scene has it\u2019s own premise that emphasizes and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":340,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-urban-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/theater-1504-spring-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/theater-1504-spring-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/theater-1504-spring-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/theater-1504-spring-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/340"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/theater-1504-spring-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/theater-1504-spring-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/theater-1504-spring-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/theater-1504-spring-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/theater-1504-spring-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}