Theater that seeks to represent the absurdity of human existence in a meaningless universe by bizarre or fantastic means.
This was the name given to an avant-garde theatrical movement that developed after World War II. While playwrights dealt with timeless themes such as human reaction to death, loneliness and freedom, they presented them in shocking, outrageous and nonsensical ways to reveal the absurdity of the human condition and the futility of trying to cope with it. Chief dramatists of the movement were Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot), Jean Genet (The Maids, The Balcony, The Blacks), Eugene Ionesco (The Bald Soprano).
Waiting for Godot:
To wait endlessly, and in futility, for something to happen. Waiting for Godo is a play by playwright Samuel Beckett in which, famously, "nothing happens", according to outraged critics.
Two tramps meet in a bare, unidentifiable place. They are waiting for Godot, who sends word that he is coming, but does not. The only passersby are a rich man and his servant, whom he treats cruelly. The tramps pass the time in meaningless conversation; they agree to leave and meet the next day, but stand still. There is no sense of progress, nor any understanding of who Godot is, or why anyone should wait for him.
~Merrian Webster's Dictionary of Allusions
