The Chairs Introduction

Eugène Ionesco’s The Chairs is one of the playwright’s most popular plays. First performed in Paris on April 22, 1952, The Chairs was only the third of Ionesco’s plays to be produced. At the time, Ionesco was still a struggling playwright.

Most critics and audiences did not know what to make of The Chairs. In the play, an elderly couple sets up chairs and greets invisible guests who have come to hear the Old Man’s message to the world. The message is left in the hands of an Orator after the couple commits suicide, but he is deaf-mute and cannot relay it.

In the program for the original production, Ionesco writes, ‘‘As the world is incomprehensible to me, I am waiting for someone to explain it.’’ As the idea of a theater of the absurd—a literary form that explored the futility of human existance—evolved, The Chairs came to be seen as a seminal example of the genre, highlighting the loneliness and futility of human existence.

By the time the play was revived in Paris in 1956, most critics and audiences lauded Ionesco for his unique staging and profound sense of humor. Since these early productions, The Chairs is still regularly performed worldwide.

The Chairs Summary

The Chairs opens with the Old Man sitting on a stool looking out the window. His wife, the Old Woman, worries that he will fall out of the window. Finally, she pulls him in and drags him towards two chairs. The Old Man sits on her lap.

The Old Woman works to calm him, reminding him that he has a message to deliver. The Old Man is excited when he remembers this. He gets up and starts to pace. The Old Woman tells him how talented he is and that he must tell the world his message.

It is revealed that the Old Man will reveal his message to many important people that evening. The doorbell rings and the first guest arrives.

All the guests are invisible. The first guest is The Lady. The old couple makes small talk with this invisible woman and gets her a chair. Another guest arrives. It is a Colonel, who is seated next to the Lady.

The doorbell rings again and two more guests arrive: Belle and her husband. The Old Woman makes grotesque sexual... » Complete The Chairs Summary