The Absurdity of Existence

The characters, situations, and story in each of these four plays is grounded, to varying degrees, in the philosophy of absurdism (see also "Style - Point of View"). This philosophy suggests that there is no order, no purpose, and no reason to/in existence - everything is chaos. Certain aspects of the plays are grounded, at least to some degree, in what is commonly perceived as reality, or at least variations of it. The relationships of the two central couples in The Bald Soprano, for example, particularly that of the Smiths, are to some degree grounded in "realistic" understanding of what "husband" and "wife" mean, while the central relationship in The Lesson starts out to be what humanity would probably see as a realistic representation of the student/teacher relationship. The same point could be made of the family relationships in Jack or the Submission...