22 September 2018

Le Cimetière parisien d'Ivry, Val-de-Marne (94): #3: Arthur Adamov


First recognized along with the likes of Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco as a defining figure at the forefront of the theatre of the absurd, French playwright Adam Adamov had a fairly prolific career, writing twenty plays between 1947 and his death in 1970. Now though he has fallen into obscurity. John J. McMann provides a study of Adamov's work which traces the playwright's artistic development and explores his role in defining the avant-garde and political theaters of France.

Adam Adamov doesn't get much of a grave here, which is absurd, but then like Alfred Jarry's grave is pretty much to be expected. Adamov wrote about twenty plays, but is now almost forgotten: in 1962 Martin Esslin's Theatre of the Absurd lists ten authors in huge letters on the cover of the Pelican version, and Adamov is one of them. But Esslin accepting the OBE from her royal etc, now that really is absurd...

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