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Critical Articles

Blau, Herbert. "The Faith-Based Initiative of the Theater of the Absurd." Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 16, no. 1 (2001): 3.

 

  • Blau argues that the lack of meaning felt by absurdists is somehow connected to the politics and current events of today. I found this very muddy.

 

Cox, Lara. "The Curious Case of La Cantatrice Chauve (1950): Re-thinking the Death of the Avant-garde." French Cultural Studies 24, no. 1 (2013): 104-115.

 

  • Cox argues that ‘Le Spectacle Ionesco’ at the Theatre de la Huchette  since 1957 has become a tourist commodity. She ultimately concludes that this is good for the artform and has increased exposure to the artform and ultimately aided in its proliferation.

 

Doubrovsky, J. S. "Ionesco and the Comic of Absurdity." Contemporary Literary Criticism Select 1976.

 

 

Elsky, Julia. "Rethinking Ionesco's Absurd: The Bald Soprano in the Interlingual Context of Vichy and Postwar France." PMLA 133, no. 2 (2018): 347-363.

 

  • This is a deep dive into Ionesco as a writer and goes so far as to examine the various nonsense phrases matching them up with various phrases and connecting them to Alfred Jarry’s Ubu roi.

 

Fiero, John W. "A Discussion of The Bald Soprano." Drama for Students (series Level).

 

  • Fiero is an English professor at Univesity of Southwestern Louisina. This article discusses the anti-play elements of the Bald Soprano including character, language and structure. Recommend to the director for a concise summary of the world of the play. See annotated copy

 

Lewis, Allan. "The Bald Soprano, The Lesson, The Chairs." Literature Resource Center.

              

  • Lewis discusses The Bald Soprano, The Lesson, and The Chairs focusing on their anti-play elements and how that was a reaction to traditional drama. Another summary, with more detail

 

Los Angeles Times. “Present at Birth of Theater of the Absurd: Stage: Director Nicolas Bataille Brings to Hollywood the Play That Brought Him and Its Author a Piece of History--Ionesco’s ‘The Bald Soprano.,’” March 20, 1993. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-03-20-ca-13077-story.html.
 

  • A talk with Nicholas Bataille who directed the first production of The Bald Soprano. Supplied to director. See annotated copy

 

Mandel, Alan. "The Bald Soprano Sings: The Concept of the Absurd in the Works of Ionesco and Selected Musical Compositions." The European Legacy: Fourth International Conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas 2, no. 1 (1997): 170-174.

 

  • This article connects absurdism in theatre to absurdism in music including an example from Mozart’s Ein Musikalisches Spass (“A Musical Joke”) which ends in chaos much like The Bald Soprano. Ionesco himself has been immortalized in music in composer Elie Seigmeister’s Five Fantasies of Theater and she has an composed an unfinished opera based on Rhinoceros

 

Milutinović, Zoran. "The Death of Representation and the Representation of Death: Ionesco, Beckett, and Stoppard." Comparative Drama 40, no. 3 (2006): 337-364.

 

  • Another deep dive into the world of the play. The author references Doubrovksy which is one of the articles I recommended to the director.

 

Simeon, Sandrine. "Film-Theatre as an Intermedial Occurrence of Theatre: Recycling Ionesco's Bald Soprano." Romance Studies: Adaptation Part 2: Intertextual Transformations Across Different Media 35, no. 4 (2017): 248-259.

 

  • An exploration of adaptation of The Bald Soprano from a play to a film and whether that affects the message of the play. The adaptation being discussed includes a soundtrack with fake laughter and utilizes other cinematic devices.

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