Page "Theatre of the Absurd" Paragraph 5

The mode of most " absurdist " plays is tragicomedy.

As Nell says in Endgame, " Nothing is funnier than unhappiness ... it's the most comical thing in the world ".

Esslin cites William Shakespeare as an influence on this aspect of the " Absurd drama.

" Shakespeare's influence is acknowledged directly in the titles of Ionesco's Macbeth and Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

Friedrich Dürrenmatt says in his essay " Problems of the Theatre ", " Comedy alone is suitable for us ...

But the tragic is still possible even if pure tragedy is not.

We can achieve the tragic out of comedy.

We can bring it forth as a frightening moment, as an abyss that opens suddenly ; indeed, many of Shakespeare's tragedies are already really comedies out of which the tragic arises.