Ionesco's plays

a conspiracy of the mind

Michael J. Hayes

pp. 92-108

in: Brian Docherty (ed), Twentieth-century European drama, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1994

Abstract

Ionesco's surrealism, or, more precisely, Theatre of the Absurd, is a homeopathic remedy for twentieth-century madness. It works by giving us controlled doses of the insanities that we have engendered to stimulate our own defence systems and so bring us to heal ourselves. The experiencing of Ionesco engages us in madness to bring us to sanity.

Cited authors

Ionesco Eugène