Abstract
THE FRENCH DRAMATISTS who began writing about 1950, baptized by M. Jean Duvignaud the "School of Paris," have sometimes been called "anti-theatrical," for they employ dramatic methods which are frequently opposed to those of the conventional theater. Writers like Ionesco, Beckett, and the early Adamov wish to return to what might be called "pure theater," that is to say a type of theater employing means which are strictly theatrical and do not belong to the realms of philosophy, psychology, sociology or politics. One of the favorite devices of such a theater is the presentation of the author's views in a visual way, using space and movement rather than language. In Waiting for Godat, for example, the moral suffering of mankind is depicted physically by shoes which do not fit, hats which scratch, servants visibly attached to masters, and watches which do not run. In a play like Adamov's The Parody, the solitude and bewilderment of modem man are represented by a decor (including a clock without hands) which remains the same, but is constantly foreign because seen from different angles. In The Big and the Little Manoeuvre, a man's destruction by incomprehensible and impersonal forces is made more palpable by his loss of one limb after the other.
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