As with any movement of which its title and ideological thrust is foisted unwittingly and often unwarrantedly upon its supposed members, the Theater of the Absurd is as awkward and uneasy a fit for Eugène Ionesco's literary and artistic endeavors as they are for Samuel Beckett or Jean Genet; "magical realism" is as inept a description of Gabriel García Márquez's intent behind is prose as absurdism was behind Ionesco's. Like García Márquez, however, the term has stuck. The problem with this phrase is that its implications – colliding the works of Ionesco with others with whom he had no particular artistic affinity, collapsing the intent of his work into that of an ill-defined movement's, easing lazy codification of his oeuvre – ossify the work of a very lively writer; they make him understandable in a way that he should perhaps better not be understood. But in some ways it is fortunate: such an ill-defined "movement" demands, from the patient reader or scholar, greater particular attention to each relevant artist; it may be an odd assortment, and they may not belong together, but they are all wonderful writers with whom to become acquainted and perhaps it's no matter how these acquaintances came about. Furthermore, for those who admire artists like Ionesco, Beckett, and Genet, this arbitrary systemization arouses rage and indignation that is quite cathartic to vent. And Ionesco did flirt a great deal with the absurd. He began composing plays late in his life, having first followed vocations as a critic and a poet. But he was profoundly influenced by Alfred Jarrry and "Ubu Roi," as well as Dadaism and Surrealism; much of his work finds relation to these interests. His earliest plays – among them "The Blind Soprano," "The Chairs," and "The Lesson" – set forth what would become a more or less consistent focus of satire: the banality of quotidian life, and how it affects and guides us in even the gravest and least banal of circumstances; how, in other words, banality has invaded our lives. This reaches a certain boiling point in "Rhinoceros," in which the residents of a provincial French town gradually turn, by a curious contagion of proximity and persuasion, into rhinoceroses. This is the second full-length play, after "The Killers," to feature Bérenger, an individualistic, semi-autobiographical figure who largely remains an observer to the, indeed, absurdity – both charming and vicious – of life. "Rhinoceros" marked a notable break for Ionesco, into a new branch of his own unique style and concerns; social and political issues gradually, and however meagerly, seeped into his plays. "Exit the King" considers the egoism of the powerful beside a depiction of the terror of mortality; "Hunger and Thirst" is a critique of organized religion; "Macbett" revisits "Macbeth" through the prism of the Cold War, with the heights of its protagonists' self-serving, corrupt, capricious, craven, and meaningless ambition on sardonic display. Even the weightiest of Ionesco's plays would barely register on a scale against those of Beckett or Genet, however. He is concerned more with ordinary human folly, how it traps and leads us into disarray, into complete confusion and nonsense. His plays are pointed, but tremendously fun; they are neither mirrors nor warnings, but impressions, acutely observed and composed.
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