Reassessing the theatre of the absurd: Camus, Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, and Pinter

Introduction : reassessing the theatre of the absurd

The parable of Estragon's struggle with the boot in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot

The Pinteresque Oedipal household : the interrogation scene(s) in The birthday party

The parable of the white clown : the use of ritual in Jean Genet's The blacks : a clown show

Berenger, the Sisyphean hero

Conclusion : theorizing a "female absurd" in Beth Henley's Crimes of the heart as a means of reassessing the theatre of the absurd.