Put in very simple terms, the problem [facing the contemporary writer] involves the creation of an artistic language or structure that could describe the physical as well as the metaphysical anguish of man in post-atomic society. Complicated enough under ordinary circumstances, artistic communication becomes even more complex when subjected to ideological censorship…. [The] ruthless visual metaphors of contemporary absurdist drama have created an allegorical structure that expresses the agony of human guinea pigs better than could be achieved by ordinary verbal language…. The language of absurd visual images seems ideally suited for the construction of socialist allegories … for, as Martin Esslin has observed, absurd images enable East European playwrights to communicate their views on man and the totalitarian state without arousing the wrath of the censor. (p. 44)

[It] is to Poland that one must turn for the earliest—and the most widespread—flowering of East European drama that...