Experimental theatre in the twentieth century: avant-gardism, the absurd, and the postmodern

Abstract

Modern drama is still patently viewed as moving from the realistic Ibsen and the naturalistic Strindberg to the socially, politically, and psychologically oriented problem plays of the twentieth century (and beyond), fed occasionally by assorted techniques from aberrant avant-garde movements. This essay, agrues, by contrast, for a revisionist history of modern drama that would acknowledge the innovative and visionary contributions of modernism, as linked to the historical and literary avant-garde, be it in the form of expressionism, symbolism, futurism, dada, or surrealism. From the inception of the absurd, moreover, avant-garde drama has certainly not ceased to proliferate. Yet in the late 1960s we entered the era of postmodernism, in which two events occurred to halt the advance of avant-garde drama. The first is the embrace by postmodern playwrights of a stylistic pluralism, an eclectic and often selfreflexive interweaving of different styles drawn from different time periods. The second is the deification of postmodern performance through the merging of author and director into a single superstar. The most significant efforts of the avant-garde do continue to involve the self-conscious exploration of the nature, limits, and possibilities of drama and theater in contemporary society; but the vision of and for the future manifest in such work remains tentative and unclear, it is as though the avant-garde could not overcome the doubt and distrust foisted upon its potential for inspired vision.