Anti-theatre and Mythic Horizon
Anti-theatre and Mythic Horizon

Summary/Abstract: The present paper starts, in its analysis, with the attempt to identify possible connections between the mythical universe and Eugène Ionesco’s play The Chairs. Noticing that the definition given to Ionesco’s theatre as a theatre of the absurd is outdated and that alternative concepts, such as parabolic drama, are already being proposed, we examine Ionesco’s theatricality from the perspective of the anti-theatre. Also, due to the fact that theatre is defined, by the representatives of political theatre, as ritual, we make a few considerations upon Ionesco’s anti-theatre viewed as anti-ritual. Afterwards, evaluating the different definitions of the myth and concluding that its definition is still a work in progress, we seek to extract arguments in order to look into Ionesco’s play from the point of view of the myth. Thus, we remark that a certain myth, underpinning the play, cannot be identified, but we have the possibility to identify and to argue that this play has a mythical horizon. At the same time, we take into consideration our personal experience with the performance of The Chairs that we put on stage, an experience that, also, constitutes a point of reference in our approach. Consequently, we suggest that references to a mythical horizon must be involved in the scenic interpretation of Eugène Ionesco's The Chairs.

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