Jean-Paul Sartre wrote No Exit in 1944, an existentialist play originally published in French as Huis Clos (meaning
In Camera or "behind closed doors"), which is the source of the popular quote, "Hell is other people." (In French,
"L'enfer, c'est les autres"). The play begins with a Valet leading a man into a room that the audience soon realizes is
in hell. Eventually he is joined by two women. After their entry, the Valet leaves and the door is shut and locked. All
three expect to be tortured, but no torturer arrives. Instead, they realize they are there to torture each other, which
they do effectively by probing each other's sins, desires, and unpleasant memories.
Existentialist themes are displayed in the Theatre of the Absurd, notably in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, in
which two men divert themselves while they wait expectantly for someone (or something) named Godot who never
arrives. They claim Godot to be an acquaintance, but in fact hardly know him, admitting they would not recognize
him if they saw him. Samuel Beckett, once asked who or what Godot is, replied, "If I knew, I would have said so in
the play." To occupy themselves, the men eat, sleep, talk, argue, sing, play games, exercise, swap hats, and
contemplate suicide—anything "to hold the terrible silence at bay".[66] The play "exploits several archetypal forms
and situations, all of which lend themselves to both comedy and pathos."[67] The play also illustrates an attitude
toward human experience on earth: the poignancy, oppression, camaraderie, hope, corruption, and bewilderment of
human experience that can be reconciled only in the mind and art of the absurdist. The play examines questions such
as death, the meaning of human existence and the place of God in human existence.
Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is an absurdist tragicomedy first staged at the Edinburgh
Festival Fringe in 1966.[68] The play expands upon the exploits of two minor characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Comparisons have also been drawn to Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot, for the presence of two central
characters who almost appear to be two halves of a single character. Many plot features are similar as well: the
characters pass time by playing Questions, impersonating other characters, and interrupting each other or remaining
silent for long periods of time. The two characters are portrayed as two clowns or fools in a world that is beyond
their understanding. They stumble through philosophical arguments while not realizing the implications, and muse
on the irrationality and randomness of the world.
Jean Anouilh's Antigone also presents arguments founded on existentialist ideas.[69] It is a tragedy inspired by Greek
mythology and the play of the same name (Antigone, by Sophocles) from the 5th century B.C. In English, it is often
distinguished from its antecedent by being pronounced in its original French form, approximately "Ante-GŌN." The
play was first performed in Paris on 6 February 1944, during the Nazi occupation of France. Produced under Nazi
censorship, the play is purposefully ambiguous with regards to the rejection of authority (represented by Antigone)
and the acceptance of it (represented by Creon). The parallels to the French Resistance and the Nazi occupation have
been drawn. Antigone rejects life as desperately meaningless but without affirmatively choosing a noble death. The
crux of the play is the lengthy dialogue concerning the nature of power, fate, and choice, during which Antigone says
that she is, "... disgusted with [the]...promise of a humdrum happiness." She states that she would rather die than live
a mediocre existence.
Critic Martin Esslin in his book Theatre of the Absurd pointed out how many contemporary playwrights such as
Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Jean Genet, and Arthur Adamov wove into their plays the existentialist belief that
we are absurd beings loose in a universe empty of real meaning. Esslin noted that many of these playwrights
demonstrated the philosophy better than did the plays by Sartre and Camus. Though most of such playwrights,
subsequently labeled "Absurdist" (based on Esslin's book), denied affiliations with existentialism and were often
staunchly anti-philosophical (for example Ionesco often claimed he identified more with 'Pataphysics or with Surrealism than with existentialism), the playwrights are often linked to existentialism based on Esslin's
observation.[
Recommended books on Existentialism:
