ABSURDISM WORKSHOP

The Absurdism Workshop invites senior Drama students to explore one of the 20th century’s most profound artistic movements.

By investigating the principles of absurdist theatre — constant consciousness, fragmentation, waiting, uncertainty, and nonlinear narrative — students explore how theatre can reflect the paradoxical, unpredictable, and often meaningless aspects of existence. Students will utilise philosophical inquiry, improvisation, movement, nonverbal communication, and scene creation to explore complex existential questions and express themselves artistically.

This workshop challenges students to think critically, reflect creatively, and engage physically and emotionally with abstract concepts. Students are introduced to the world of absurdist theatre through two key theatrical principles:

• A Constant Stream of Consciousness: Explore how fragmented, nonlinear thought patterns can shape characterisation, dialogue, and movement in performance.
• The Ability to Wait: Understand “waiting” as a metaphor for existential uncertainty, exploring tension, inertia, and unresolved action on stage.

Through physical improvisation, scene-building exercises, script analysis (e.g., Waiting for Godot, The Bald Soprano, Endgame), and philosophical inquiry, students will experiment with how theatre can embrace ambiguity, contradiction, humour, futility, and the unknowable.

KEY LEARNING OUTCOMES

• DRAMA (Years 11–12):

Senior Drama Units: Contemporary Theatre, Absurdism, Non-Realist Performance

• Exploration of key absurdist texts and performance conventions.
• Understanding how performance can reflect philosophical and existential ideas.
• Developing performance skills using non-verbal, physical, and fragmented dramatic forms.
• Experimenting with improvisation, surreal imagery, ritual, repetition, and silence.

Senior Drama Syllabus (General) – Key Learning Areas:

Making:

• Devise, rehearse, and perform original and scripted absurdist works that challenge traditional theatrical conventions.
• Manipulate dramatic languages (role, relationship, situation, voice, movement, space, symbol) to create meaning.

Responding:

• Interpret and evaluate the purpose and context of absurdist performance practices.
• Analyse the effectiveness of dramatic elements and conventions to communicate existential ideas.

Styles and Conventions:

• Study key features of Absurdism: cyclical structure, fragmentation, illogical dialogue, distorted time, repetition, clowning, and ritual.
• Examine how theatrical practitioners such as Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Jean Genet, and Harold Pinter shaped this movement.

Critical Reflection:

• Critically analyse how absurdist theatre explores human existence, uncertainty, and the breakdown of meaning.
• Reflect on how performance can express complex philosophical ideas without clear resolutions.

GENERAL CAPABILITIES (Years 11–12):

Critical and Creative Thinking

• Question and challenge assumptions about narrative, logic, and meaning.
• Explore divergent thinking strategies through performance improvisation.
• Generate new ways of expressing complex emotional and philosophical ideas.

Personal and Social Capability

• Build resilience by embracing ambiguity and taking creative risks.
• Collaborate effectively in ensemble settings where outcomes are deliberately open-ended and unpredictable.

Ethical Understanding

• Reflect on the ethical dilemmas and philosophical paradoxes that exist within human existence.
• Understand diverse perspectives on the meanings of suffering and purpose.

STYLE / FORM:

• Absurdist Theatre
• Physical Theatre
• Nonlinear and Fragmented Narrative
• Clowning and Ritual-based Movement
• Minimalist Dialogue and Non-Verbal Communication

Devised by: Clint Bolster