From a small town in Sicily called (prophetically?) Chaos, there emerged one of the comic geniuses of modern European drama. Luigi Pirandello was always ahead of his time, scandalizing hoi polloi with ultra-Modernist experiments in structure, narrative, and staging. The grandfather of the absurd '- I

Absurd, Anxiety, Flux, Layered, Theater of the grotesque (italy)

In July of 1883, an average middle-class Jewish family in an average suburb of Prague (then in Austria) ushered into the average world a new creature: Franz Kafka. He would never forgive them for this unnatural act of torture. Franz kept his neurosis quietly to himself throughout his childhood, r

Absurd, Anxiety, Dreamy, Dystopic, Existentialist literature, Hallucinatory, Hypnotic, Intense, Modernist literature, Neurotic, Profane

Wary friend of Existentialism and gentle foe of nature's illusions, Irish novelist, poet, and playwright Samuel Beckett is one of the foremost artists of the twentieth century, and certainly one of the most influential. Awarded the Nobel Prize in 1969 against his more modest wishes, Beckett specializ

Absurd, Depressive, Existentialist literature, Minimal, Modernist literature, Repetition, Repetitive, Theater of the absurd

"I salute Antonin Artaud," wrote Andre Breton, "for his passionate, heroic negation of everything that causes us to be dead while alive." The French actor, director, poet, and theorist was an enraged man of arguable genius; nevertheless, his writings are seminal influences on experimental theater. Ar

Absurd, Experimental, Literature of transgression, Severe, Surreal, Surrealist theater, Theater of cruelty, Theater of the absurd