The dialogue in The Bald Soprano provides powerful metaphors for this viewpoint. As the audience listens to non sequiturs, comical lapses in communal memory, and situations that do not follow any logical timelines, Ionesco underscores the absurdity of the human quest for meaning in a universe that is not governed by one. The set of the play and its characters are a microcosm of such a universe.

Inspired by the nonsensical nature of literal translations during his study of the English language, the French-Romanian playwright titled this modern classic after an odd mistake spoken during a rehearsal of the play, in which a blonde teacher was called a bald singer. There actually is no such character in the play. The title itself reflects the silliness of trying to find something that piques human curiosity but is not actually there.

The Bald Soprano is a masterpiece of absurdist humor and has been called a tragicomedy. As the name implies, tragicomedy interweaves two opposite theatrical genres as a way of looking at life. There is a tragic aspect to the idea that humans desperately want to uncover the meaning of existence, even as the universe is playing a joke on them. It is disordered and devoid of logic—and happily so.

The ancient Greek myth of Sisyphus, who incessantly rolls a rock to the top of a hill only to have it come down again, exemplifies the absurdist perspective. Absurdism grew out of existentialism, a philosophical viewpoint that developed during the devastating events of World War II. Existentialism posits that there is no innate meaning to existence—that we must choose our own purpose.