The Chairs (Masterplots II: Drama, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Eugene Ionesco
- First Published: 1954
- Type of Plot: Absurdist
- Time of Work: Distant, indeterminate future
- Setting: A tower in France
- Principal Characters: Old Man, Old Woman (Semiramis), The Orator
- Genres: Drama, Absurdist literature, Farce
- Subjects: Memory, France or French people, Suicide, Surrealism, Future, Reality, Islands, Death or dying, Existentialism, Christ figures or saviors, Old age or elderly people, Furniture
- Locales: Islands
The Play
As the curtain rises on The Chairs, the audience is immediately struck by the play’s unusual setting: a sparsely furnished semicircular room, surrounded entirely by doors and windows, with two stools facing windows on opposite sides of the stage, two chairs at center stage, and a dais and blackboard centered downstage. The Old Man stands on one of the stools looking down at the water below as his wife, the Old Woman, Semiramis, lights a hanging gas lamp, which creates an eerie green glow. They live atop a tower completely surrounded by water. The play’s...
[The entire page is 3787 words long]
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