SOURCE: An obituary in The New York Times, March 29, 1994, pp. A1, D21.

[Gussow is an American editor, educator, biographer, and critic. In the following obituary, he provides an overview of Ionesco's life and works.]

Eugène Ionesco, whose wildly innovative plays, among them Rhinoceros, The Bald Soprano and The Chairs, overturned conventions of contemporary theater and had a profound effect on a new generation of playwrights, died yesterday in Paris, where he lived. He was 84.

His death was announced by the French Cultural Ministry. The cause was not reported.

Mr. Ionesco's "anti-plays" satirized modern society while discovering new uses of language and theatrical techniques. Inspired by silent film clowns and vaudeville, he was a playful playwright, clownish in his own personality as well as in his work onstage. With outrageous comedy, he attacked the most serious subjects: blind conformity and totalitarianism, despair and death. Repeatedly he challenged—and...