The Plays of Jonesco

Extract

It is only since the war that Eugène Ionesco has become known in Paris, where his name is linked with those of Samuel Beckett, Jean Genêt, Jean Vauthier and others. All these writers have come to be classed as avant-garde, because they are all in reaction against some aspects of our conventional drama. But their approach in each case is highly individual.

Ionesco is certainly one of the most original, stimulating and personal among them.

He tells us that he came to write for the theatre because he had grown to detest it, and he started writing mainly for his own enjoyment. He was tired of the mean little intrigues, the superficial values and the barren preoccupation with the problems of everyday life that he found in naturalistic drama. And he was disturbed at the sight of actors struggling to create the illusion that they were the counterparts of the members of the audience.