Theatre of the Absurd makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine. How has this been demonstrated in your class reading of The Bald Prima Donna?
Well, you see...because of all the Bobby Watson's we are able to imaging ourselves and our family, friends etc. in the story and we can imagine ourselves having those meaningless conversations. Through reading The Bald Prima Donna we can see how many trivial conversation normal people have every day and how the majority of our discussions are meaningless and actually have no effect at all on our lives. In this absurdist play the characters focus most of their attention, funnily enough, on the least important of the issues in their life, such as debates about doorbells...be right back...don't worry it was nobody. That’s weird; usually when a doorbell rings there is someone at the door. Obviously this is not always true. Anyway, as I was saying in the play they focus on very unimportant things instead of the significant things in their lives. The focus question says “Theatre of the Absurd makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine”. I believe the element of it that makes us able to do this is the fact that when we are part of the trivial conversations we don’t always see how trivial they are. However, when we read through a play and perform it and hear ourselves repeating the same things over and over again it helps us see the light. It doesn’t make sense that I am sitting in the corner throwing my hands up saying, “This is ridiculous!!” during the most frustratingly and annoying times in the play when as soon as the bell rings I and going to sit down outside and eat my recess and have a conversation that may actually be even less important than those in the play, who’s events I was previously questioning. It other words I am trying to say that sometimes we have to see someone else doing the stupid thing to understand how stupid and pointless it actually is. Oh well, I am going to go now and have a very long conversation with my family about the doorbell situation I previously witnessed. It is, after all, extremely significant in my life and is certainly one the most important issues in our world today. That’s not absurd at all!! Right??
Thank you for being the first brave soul to respond! It was an excellent and insightful post, with a nice Absurdist twist.
The play certainly does challenge us to reassess our own lives. I think you're onto something by focusing on 'trivial conversations', seeing as so much of The Bald Prima Donna is concerned with the use (or misuse!) of language. I also liked your point about being able to see things in our own lives by watching situations be played out by other characters on stage. That's the beauty of theatre, it often gives us a perspective that you can't necessarily gain when you're in the midst of an experience yourself.
Any other thoughts? Would someone care to expand on Georgina's response, or propose another way that the play makes us laugh at trivial parts of our everyday routine?
I suppose we all laughed at the bald prima donna because it was just so non-sensical yet we could relate it to real situations.
The whole idea of the absurdist playwrights was to totally question what we do, and make us as the readers and viewers think about that when we see it in front of us.
When you think about it, most of our discussions, much like those in the play, seem to go around and around in circles. I'm sure everyone knows that there is almost always one thing that comes up in class EVERY single day. This is shown through the reaaallly aggravating scene with mr and mrs Martin asking each other where they know each other from(god that got annoying - you know you groaned. dont deny it).
I agree wih Georgie that all the Bobby Watsons represent the people around us. Looking around, you see people in groups, with really similar fashion, hair, the way they talk... practically cloning each other. Maybe that is what Ionesco was trying to hint at. A trend starts, and all of a sudden everyone is following it. this is an issue that never goes away.
Our class kept getting aggravated at all the repetition in the play. We are all very impatient. As ionesco was learning english at the time he wrote the play, is he hinting at how annoyed he was getting with the english language itself. There isnt a single sound for a word, there are soooo many pronounciations, and maybe this was a way of him letting out frustration?
The whole idea of a routine is trivial in itself, dont you think? we prioritise ourselves based on what we consider most important... when really, if we told anyone else the way we spent our time they would probably think we were retarded... so in the play, answering the doorbell, or commenting on the food, is of high priority... and we think thats just plain, well, absurd.
I'm not sure if this really answered the "focus question", but its what comes to my mind in my reactions to the play, which i think is hilarious... in the strangest way possible.
Fascinating interpretations there Lauren. Your reading of the Bobby Watson(s) scene really grabbed my attention. I think that's an extremely contemporary perspective on the play, particularly as we are living in a world where these 'clones' (celebrities, perhaps?) are increasingly visible, splashed across every beauty and gossip magazine. Very interesting. It's nice to see that a play written over fifty years ago can remain relevant to today's society. Thanks for your contribution!
Lauren you answer does reflect on the focusing question: Theatre of the Absurd makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine. and i agree with alot of what you are saying many growns when repitition becomes evdiant, and georgina i do also agree and lauren you touched on this too that it makes us reflect on our own lives and the meaningless conversations we undergo, that are really un nessassary and no one care what your answer is anyway for e.g. "how are you". acting the play has been a mixture of emotions from funny, to borded, to confused which is my interpration of absurdity. lauren i also liked how you touch on Ionesco and how he may by even learning the language felt the pointlessness of what he was saying and the play itslef maybye expressing his own annoyance he exprenced whilst learnt the language,this is something i hadn't really thought about thanks :) i do belive the use of language is relavant and very clever, for it has taught me that language isnt your only souce of communictaion, gesture and tone can be fiddled around with to express your thought, this was shown in class when the bald prima donna read "a young claf had eaten too much ground glass"and tash acidently said grass showing how even with the wrong word said we knew what she ment or what the word would usually and should really be. also i have found though the play seems to go around in circles there is a drmatic structure evidant being shown throughout the play its just the absurd way of seeing it. i have notice that there isnt usually a median of feelings you are either finding it really funny or really boring, really annoying or really clever.
p.s i cant spell and dont know if this makes much sense.
thats all for now.
over and out.
ddddd dooogggssss (aka danielle, trying to be lame so you focus on my weird ending rather then middle bit :) )
well i agree with everything you have said! The Bald Prima Donna is a representation of the conversations we have each day and just how meaningless they are. But then why do we find this so funny? The Bald Prima Donna also symbolizes a typical English family...and considering we all have some sort of Anglo Saxon background... does this mean we are laughing at ourselves?
I definitely agree with what Lauren said…that the bald prima donna reflects Ionesco’s frustration of learning English, considering it is a very inconsistent language. Yet I also believe that Ionesco is aiming to mock the English and ridicule their ways of life. Ionesco may be trying to show that in society we are always trying to be people we are not and we are always trying to be the best. This is shown in the play through the 2 families (Martins and Smiths), who continuously engage in meaningless arguments in order to “out do” the other. This also reflects that the families are of the bourgeois class because they are trying to live up to the capitalist class. And as you said Mr. Rutherford we are living in a world where we try to clone our favourite celebrities and the things we will do or say just to achieve a certain status is ridiculous! Many of the lines and actions in the play represent this theory...and because majority of the lines are absurb, it may be showing that when we try to be people we are not we additionally lose our own identity.
The script is also full of non-sequiturs that suggests the characters are not even listening to each other in their frantic efforts to make their own voices heard. this is particularly amusing for the audience as many ridiculous and absurd things are said!
“Theatre of the Absurd makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine."
Some aspects of Absurdist Theatre are not actually common occurrences, and they still make us laugh, such as when Mr and Mrs Smith are talking, and she randomly tries to stab him. How many of you can say that that has happened to you on a regular basis? It is the randomness and the oddity of the action that is funny.
I agree with Bec in that through laughing at The Bald Prima Donna and the Absurdist elements it displays, we are actually just laughing at ourselves, because they are things that we do everyday in life, and Absurdist Theatre shows people talking about realistic things, such as what they had for dinner, yet for some reason we find it hilarious. I think it's because it is displaying the fact that the things that we talk about on a daily basis, are absurd. Why be talking about doorbells when you can be talking about other, more important things? Unless the reason we are laughing is not because of just the dialogue, but the way in which it is spoken, e.g monotonously. Or maybe it’s just that the English are particularly hilarious people?
…Maybe not.
Do you actually care what the answer is when someone asks you how you are? Or is it jus an icebreaker? If so, why do we need icebreakers? Do people actually think you want to listen to their stories about Bobby Watson’s? I think the play makes us re-evaluate our lives, and the things that we believe are important, and then it forces us to question it and wonder whether it really matters.
Words are only a small part of our communication, facial expression and body movement count too, and this is demonstrated in Absurdist theatre, in that you are confused by the characters contradicting dialogue and actions, and you wonder, what do they actually mean? What are they trying to say?
People don’t realise how stupid they actually sound when we are whining about doorbells and maids until we see it scripted the way Ionesco has done and read out in class. What effect will it have on you in the big scheme of things if your doorbell has or hasn’t been rung?
So if we realise how stupid talking about these shallow things actually is, can you imagine how odd it must sound to foreigners, e.g Ionesco. Here I agree with Lauren, I think that he did a great job of expressing his frustration with the English language, in the play, the dialogue becomes predictable, and we can almost guess what the characters are going to say next, for example, ‘hm!’
It’s funny to think that we laugh at the conversations of the Smiths and the Martins in the play, and we don’t even realise that when we are talking about shallow things such as fashion and material things at lunch, we are doing the same thing, talking about things that usually don’t matter that much, and we think that the characters in the play are completely deranged for talking about such odd things. But really, if we are having unimportant conversations just as they do, why don’t we consider ourselves to be deranged as well? What hypocrisy!
When we did The Bald Prima Donna we did laugh at certain sections, which did in fact involve our daily routine in society. I believe the play gave deeper meaning, for example, an everyday thing in which we do is talk to a family member of friend, which is seen in The Bald Prima Donna at the very start when Mrs Smith is talking to Mr Smith, however her dialogue is so pointless and meaningless it seems as though the author is mocking us, and saying a lot of our conversation in everyday life is pointless and meaningless. I found that the most abusurd components came from the most casual, everyday sitautions such as the door bell scene. I mean how many of us in our lives have answered to door when someone rings the bell or knocks on it? It happens almost everyday, yet they seemed to make a bizaare situation out of it, then somehow starts an argument about how either "There is never anybody at the door when it rings" OR "There is somebody there at the door when its rings" Which brings me to my next point, we all read the numerous arguments between Mr & Mrs Smith. Arguing is a part of our everyday lives as well, we might argue with a parent, a friend or a teacher. Yet the arguments between Mr&Mrs Smith (and also between Mr&Mrs Smith and Mr&Mrs Martin) were so pointless, basically about nothing, and we laughed at them. I thought it was funny how Mr&Mrs Smith fought about pointless nothings, but then I thought to myself that a lot of the arguments we have in life are also pointless. So it's wierd because we are laughing at the characters, and what they are saying and doing, however we do not realise that in a way, we are laughing at ourselves...
wow you guys have really nailed it! I guess that when reading the bald prima donna we realise how trivial our own lives are. Also how meaningless our conversations are in the bigger picture. It also constantly suprised me because the people in it do the opposite of what i expected them to do. If you think about it don't you think that our coversations do't always make sense? and we also point out obvious things to people. The play really grasped my attention because of the obvious situations that confronted us that the characters couldn't see (eg. When the martins were wondering if they had met each other before). I guess we are really just laughing at ourselfs and the stupid, trivial conversations we have everyday of our lives.
The ending of The Bald Prima Donna has a subliminal message saying that really in life we do the same thing. We wake up, go to the bathroom, have breakfast, get ready for the day etc. In life we do the same thing as everyone else just in a different pattern or order. And you could say that, that is the only thing make people different. The play also shows with the scene when the Martins find out that they have seen eachother before. This scene also shows that perhaps we don't really know our friend and family and we only know what they want us to know. The Bald Primma Donna has many subliminal messages and that is a great entertaining and thought provoking play.
The ending of The Bald Prima Donna has a subliminal message saying that really in life we do the same thing. We wake up, go to the bathroom, have breakfast, get ready for the day etc. In life we do the same thing as everyone else just in a different pattern or order. And you could say that, that is the only thing make people different. The play also shows with the scene when the Martins find out that they have seen eachother before. This scene also shows that perhaps we don't really know our friend and family and we only know what they want us to know. The Bald Primma Donna has many subliminal messages and that is a great entertaining and thought provoking play.
laughing or understanding is the question? As we laugh at this absurb unusual play you begin to look into the depth and true meaning of the message. While preforming the play in class i instantly created a meaning less than understanding, with the meaningless and trivial converstations but as i look at the other girls comments funnily enough i undertand the weirdness. This is not a play i believe this is the start of life (human life)- nothing, then through learning we find purpose in life.
This play is truly inspirational in it absurd way!!!
"For dinner tonight we had cold ham, peas and mashed potatoes" This would seem like a fairly normal statement if you were describing to someone what you just ate for dinner, however if you took this statement and started to go into great depth about what kind of peas they were, where is the best place to buy them and begin to analyse every single detail about this common english meal, people would probably think you were insane!
At the beginning of the play, this somewhat simple and pointless statement has all of a sudden turned into a very trivial and intense conversation that made us all laugh at what seemed to be the stupidity of the characters and their thoughts.
It is absurd things like this pointless conversation that make us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine. As some of you have previously said, everyday we say and do things that appear to have no meaning to us because we always do them, but as soon as you start to analyse these meaningless actions, they appear to have some significance or just make you laugh at the utter stupidity or randomness of even thinking about them. I think this is what Ionesco was trying to establish and hence, the absurdism of the play is created.
Also, the fact that we all laugh at the numerous non-sequitors throughout the play, is because they are so out of place and weird that we do not know how to react to them, so we just laugh. Perhaps Ionesco wanted to confuse but confront us at the same time?
Some great comments so far. I raised the point with my class this morning about the way that we all say "How are you?". Do we really mean "How is your health today? I really care..:" or are we just programmed to say it to fill in the silences....... Think about the number of places that we hear "How are you?" - it happens everywhere from Maccas to Woolies...
The Bald Prima Donna, I think, is an exaggeration of our lives. I know everyone has said this before, but it's really interesting how the majority of things we do in our lives are absolutely pointless! I agree with ellie when she said that some aspects of Absurdist Theatre are not actually common occurrences. The reason being that its not really normal for a Fire Chief to come to your front door, come inside, tell really random stories to you and your husband and then just leave saying he has to attend to someone suffering from heartburn, on the other side of London, in three-quarters of and hour and sixteen minutes...is it? I really like the Bald Prima Donna because most of the things I say and do each day are just like those in the play. I say weird, unecessary things and do weird, unecessary things. Well I'm off to go and do some more pointless things...haha xo
Wow it's really hard to know what to write after so many good comments on this topic. We have come to realise through studying the Bald Prima Donna in class that everyone has different opinions on different aspects of the play and there are many different interpretations. Some things in this absurdist play may seem down right weird and illogical, but really they have more depth than we realise at first. It is the weird part that makes us laugh. When someone does something weird or says something accidentally, offhand like my brother "I eat with my left fork" (have forks become people now too? with right and left hands?), we laugh. So when we hear comments such as "Bobby Watson, the son of old Bobby Watson whose Aunt was Bobby Watson...Bobby Watson...Bobby Watson etc" we find it out of place in the modern society of St Ives. No one in their right mind would call all their children the same name as themselves, uncles, aunties and grandparents; except in childrens books or absurdist plays, but all these names have a much deeper meaning. The Bobby Watsons can be clones as Lauren said, or a representation of the everyday meaningless small talk we have to fill silences. Another question we can have though, is did all these meaningful thoughts really pass through Ionesco's mind as he wrote this play? Or was he too a bit absurd and just wanted to express himself in a creative, original way? Maybe while learning the English language, he struggled to understand why people talk about such insignificant things and so was simply trying to show, as others said, his frustration at the english language. Or perhaps he was still learning and used annoyingly repetitive phrases simply because of his lack of English vocab?! haha You decide...
i think after reading the prima donna it has become evident that theatre of the absurd most definately portays 'life' and the things that we do in society in general. i think it questions weather the things we do automatically are actually 'normal' or what is normal for that matter? do things really have to be done a certain way? for example in 'The Bald Prima Donna'when the door bell rings they have a debate over weather it means that someone is actually at the door. Some other 'issues' or 'topics' the play brings up is How well do we actually know each other? and Do we really love our loved ones or do we just like the 'idea' of liking them? or loving them? This is portayed when Mr and Mrs Martain go through the process of realising they are husband and wife. Lastly i'd like to add that i believe that the use of 'time' in the play is actually the most important issue raised of all, time is constantly wasted through the duration of the play with meaningless conversations and non- sequiturs and as Bec Quin said they are not even listening to each other - this conveys that we are extremly self centred in society and as Ms Mac says we love to talk about ourselves - time is wasted - time goes around in circles - time repeates itself and is the writer actually mocking theese actions in english life? hope that made sence Breana xxx
hello children yes yes i know that there already is a new focus question..but i rather liked this one so im writing on this blogg.. ohh and by the way miss mac and mr rutherford and miss young...you should all be extremely proud..look how well written the drama girls in our grade are and how enthuastic they all are about theatre of the absurd..you must be teaching us well. :) annyyyywayyy.. i would like to point out a particular aspect of the play that miss mac touched on; we always talk but never listen. When played this convention of theatre of the absurd in an over exaggerated way (eg. when Mr Smith, Mrs Smith, Mr Martin and mrs martin are playing wist and talking but not listening)it causes the audience to laugh. An example of this is non-sequiters. I was listening into a conversation betwen two of my friends today at lunch and they we talking about the same general topic (sport) but only from their own perspective. It made me realise the issues raised in The Bald Prima Donna, althoght they may seem far fetched, are still very relevant today. We quite often find that when laughing at the actors on stage we are actually laughing at our selves, as we have been in the same situation many times before. I think that the door bell scene is commenting on how we; as human beings, have become programed to respond in certain ways to particular sounds and signals. As Miss Mac said; she has got us to become acustom to responding to her behaviours. For example when she stands in the middle of a class room and says "Hm" we know to stand in a circle and wait for the lesson to begin. Random i know..haha I also think that we find ourselves laughing during atheatre of the absurd performance because every event is completely unexpected. We may just be laughing at the sheer randomness and shock of the actions shown on stage..but when we walk out of the drama room and reflect on what we had just seen that we see the deeper menings behind the comedic façade.
toodle-loo
P.S. i know i didn't really answer the question directly but i decided to add too and comment on what all the other girls have written. :)
i know many of you have been writing in this as Ms Mac has informed me. i wasnt in class for all of the reading of the play however today in our double lesson we had some very interesting interpretations of the script.
i personally was in tears when kelly christie angie and georgia used the colourful body bags to play out the final four scenes of the play. i have never seen anything so entertaining.
i dont think anyone that wanst in the classroom could understand just how hilarious it was watching these girls perform is.
I just tried singing in for YEARS and then I realised that it was on CAPS LOCK!
Theatre of the Absurd makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine.
There were heaps of parts in the Bald Prima Donna when Miss. Mac would ask us what we were laughing at or why we found a particular part so funny. It was the silencio parts and the random lines that made us laugh because we found the moments awkward or just too random. But (as pretty much everyone has already said) the play write is really making fun of our conversations.
I think that the bald prima donna makes us laugh at our everyday routines because of the simpleness of the conversation. For example int he beginning when Mrs Smith is discussing the dinner and the mayonnaise at first glance this conversation is pretty ordinary and bland but then you realise the setting and certain features of the piece that grab your attention as quite strange. This conversation is also interesting as it would seem quite normal to someone who didn't speak fluent english. All the way through the play Ionesco has made parts absurd, most definatly, but whenever he has said something that contradicts the previous lines he has used different words so that only strong english (or in its original form french) speakers would notice the issue. For example "Lucky they didn't have any children." and then "But who will take care of the children?" rather than saying, "they have children." "They don't have children". Well thats my thoughts anyway.
We have laughed at many things wilst reading the Bald Primma Donna. we have laughed at - the uses of silences.its not normal for people to be quiet for long periods of time in todays day and age. - the actual script has no meaning whatsoever. - the play focuses on who people really are and their personalities and how people can live together without knowing everything. - we also laugh at how stupid it is, pointless things like the sky is blue are said,which arent relevant at all. - the script is also quite random with unexpected things popping up.we laugh at this aswell.
"Theatre of the Absurd makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine. How has this been demonstrated in your class reading of The Bald Prima Donna?"
I agree wholeheartly with this statement! (I know i might sound a bit philosphical, bear with me) I think that our whole life is trivial! Everything we do in life, whether it be chatting, silence, surfing the net, meeting firemen, talking about what we had for dinner, or talking about a play! This is because everthing is irrelevant. Ther is always something/one that is worse/better/funnier/sadder. So unless one has experienced the ENTIRE world, then everything is, in theory,trivial!(i may not make sense, but it clicks together in my head) In our class we have demonstrated and stressed some of the more trivial parts of the play. (but isn't it all?) The class activity that is most prominent in my head is was on monday 20th. That was the day in which we presented our roleplays. My groups theme was loneliness. I won't fully describe our play, but the most trival parts of it was when its that famous "Hm Hm Hm" scene. Each one of our group members has a nervous tick that was presented in that extremely awkward silence. As the silence pressed on, the tick become more and more obvious, showing the audience the amount nervousness that hung in the air. But just the fact that we, mere humans, get a tad nervous at lack on converstion goes to show, just how trivial our lives are. Step back! Look at the bigger picture! Aren't there larger things we should be worrying about on the scale of reality, besides our social manners???
you know its really funny, we've all been reading and acting out The Bald Prima Donna and its made all of us laugh really hard at certain things and we all believe that the whole play is just totally insane and nonsensical, yet once we started to look at it in greater depth, it turns out that pretty much the whole play relates to different parts of our everyday life. the huge conversation between mr and mrs martin, which was probably the most frustrating part of the play, came across as just three or four pages of boring nothingness and pointless, stupid conversation but it turns out that it actually represents the fact that we, create new relationships and strengthen old ones, may think that we know people really well, but the majority of the time we actually don't really know them at all. we trick ourselves into a false sense of security in a world where we know everything about ourselves and everyone else and we know who our friends are and we know what they are like, but in reality its not like that. thats one of the things that i found so interesting about this play. it really does help us to see how naive we can be to think that we know everything. another thing that really intrigued me was the fact that the characters, when they are having those REALLY annoying and pointless conversations, think that they are talking about real issues; they think that they are conducting a perfectly normal and sometimes even deep conversation. it alerts us to the fact that we can often be talking to some one and be thinking that we are really getting to know them and discussing big and important issues but then you look back and realise how materialistic and trivial the conversation has actually been. the whole play is full of issues that relate to us so closely and reading it really makes you look around at the way that you act and the way you are. its so fascinating.
The Bald Prima Donna makes us laugh because of the simplistic and trivial parts of our everyday routine. This is shown through the cyclical nature of the play. This is shown through the "How very extraordinary" conversation and "Goodness! 9 o'clock!" But i don't understand how this can be that funny as we ourselves live in a cyclical way. Every morning we go through a routine i.e. get up, have breakfast, brush teeth etc. Are we just laughing at the "absurdism" of humans and their ways? The Bald Prima Donna is packed with formalities e.g. "How are you?" "Good evening" etc. This become amusing and sometimes irritating as these phrases seem to lose their meaning when said over and over again. This makes us laugh because the audience now realise that sometimes things are said naturally and subconsciously even if we don't mean to.
There are many trivial parts of our everyday routine that Ionesco makes us laugh about in The Bald Prima Donna.
A particularly funny scene in The Bald Prima Donna was the “Hm” conversation. The simplicity of Ionesco writing “Hm” for about a page reduced our class to hysterics when we acted it out in class. After reading this scene, we discussed a lot of things like how it is apart of human nature to fill in silences, and also the reason why we have why we have people over to our house. In the case of the Smith’s and the Martin’s is it just that they feel they need to out of politeness. Why is it that the Martin’s are invited to the Smith’s place if all they do is make “hm” noises to fill up the silences? Clearly they have nothing to talk about, so we need to question why they are there.
As other people have discussed, Ionesco questions if we actually listen when people talk to us, or are we thinking about other more “important” or sensational events that have happened to us to add to the conversation. This idea can be seen when the Martin’s and Smith’s play whist. Clearly the characters aren’t listening to each other as they yell out statements that don’t fit in at all with the rest of the conversation. Something as simple and trivial as communication, which is apart of our everyday routine, is definitely questioned in the play.
In the play The Bald Prima Donna, something as trivial as tying up shoelaces becomes funny because of the characters reaction. The characters find a story about someone tying up a shoelace an entertaining conversation for about half a page. They are so as captivated by something so ridiculously trivial, that the playwright makes us laugh.
Many of the long stories that the fireman tells are extremely trivial. The story about “The Cold” goes on for about a page. Normally we just tell someone we have a cold, and not go on about who we got it off and who they got it off, and who they got if off and so on. When we also tell someone we have a cold, we don’t begin telling them with the statement “The Cold” and go on with the story. The fact that a simple trivial matter such as informing one about having a cold is so long winded and formal makes it so hilarious!
There are many factors in the play The Bald Prima Donna that make us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine.
In The Bald Prima Donna there are meaningless conversations and babbling which make most of our conversations with other people seem pointless and have no meaning to them at all.
An example that shows the way theatre of the absurd makes us laugh at parts of our everyday routine is the part in the play when the doorbell rings and Mrs Smith goes to answer it and nobody is there. This happens a few times and there is never anyone at the door until Mr Smith answers it. Mr Smith says “When you hear a ring at the bell, it’s because there is someone at the door who rings the bell so that someone else can go answer it.” The audience knows what to do when the doorbell rings, it is clear to us, but they are making such a big deal about answering the door it becomes funny.
I agree with what Bec Quinn said about how Ionesco is aiming to mock the English people and make fun of their ways of life. The way he shows this is through the conversations that the characters have with each other, that are pointless and have no meaning. He also shows this with the first part of the play, when Mrs Smith talks about food and the way the ‘English’ is continuously repeated. And also the way in which the Smiths and the Martins get very excited about a man Mrs Martin saw doing up his shoelace.
Ionesco could be making a point about how what we talk about and the conversations that we have, really don’t mean anything at all, and are meaningless with no reason behind them.
I also agree with Ellie V and the point she made about, that when we laugh at these characters about what they say and do, in a way we are actually laughing at ourselves.
i found the bald prima donna to be absurd to say the least, the story goes on and on in a battle againsed reality. It is inevitable that the story will have to end at some point, but the plot keeps going along in no particular direction so it keeps you guessing for the slightest hint of a climax, or near ending. It uses the dull and meaningless words and phrases of the english language to make a satire of our language and poing out how very trivial our language is. A great example of this is the fresh maionase scene where Mrs Smith tells her husband what they had for dinner when he should allwready know since he has eaten it. I believe that Ionesco was stating that we could cut half of the dialogue out of our lives and still understand one another. The reason that the Bald Primma Donna to me is so funny, is that he uses phrases that clearly dont have a point and do not fit together. im not sure if i have answered the focus question .. but i think that every one summed it up pretty nicely alltogether.
"Theatre of the Absurd makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine. How has this been demonstrated in your class reading of The Bald Prima Donna?" (I’m a bit late on the first entry but anyways. By the way, everyone’s done really well on this!) Theatre of the Absurd represents the meaningless and incomprehensible routines and ways of our day-to-day lives, which the Bald Prima Donna portrays. I agree with Bec Quinn, stating, “Ionesco is aiming to mock the English and ridicule their ways of life. Ionesco may be trying to show that in society we are always trying to be people we are not and we are always trying to be the best.” I believe that he is definitely mocking and stereotyping the pointless discussions and routines of not just the English but everyone.
As the audience/responders of the play, we see just how pointless our conversations can be and seeing this demonstrated in a play really makes us question our daily conversations and lives. This absurdist play makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routines by pointing out some of the factors in our lives that we consider a routine and a way of life but the play symbolizes it as meaningless and unimportant. This can be noted in the section where Mr. and Mrs. Martin do not know if they are married and cannot remember where they have met and or if they have ever met before. This symbolizes the lack of importance of marriage in our society today and shows the frequent brokenness arising between relationships in the real world. To not know if a person is your partner, really represents your marriage as unimportant and therefore means nothing to the characters which are having a ridiculous and annoying but hilarious conversation about their forgotten pasts and lives ‘together’. I found performing this section funny to begin with but irritating towards the end because the conversation kept repeating itself and was going nowhere.
In the play, the characters conversations are very dull and illogical, especially seen in the section where Mr. and Mrs. Martin along with Mr. and Mrs. Smith are having a discussion and when it comes to gossiping they were shocked and fascinated by the stupid idea of someone tying up their shoelaces in public. I found this to be extremely hilarious and I believe that this incident represents our society’s love of gossip and nosing into other peoples businesses since our lives seem to become more interesting with what other people have done and are doing. I also agree with Georgina and the point she made about us having to see someone else doing stupid things to understand how stupid and pointless that thing actually is.
Its funny how the play makes us reflect on our own lives. I realised the amount of pointless conversations i have every day and in effect point them out to people, uh.. poinlessly. The Bald Prima Donna basically pokes a stick at how we are all the same which i personally disagree with. But if we all were called Bobby Watson and looked the same i can see where Eugene Ionesco is coming from. If i had a fruit salad today, i'm not likely to go into detail on what kind of fruit was in it, where i got it from and what knife my mum used to cut it with. But I like the touch that Ionesco put on the characters in the play and the way the actions contradict the dialogue. Random is funny and for a guy who initially couldnt speak English he did a good job
"Theatre of the Absurd makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine. How has this been demonstrated in your class reading of The Bald Prima Donna?"
heyy guys well im pretty sure you have all nailed when it comes to answering the focus question. Personally i think it's funny that the trivial aspects of The Bald Prima Donna reflect on our every day lives. It constantly went around in circles the whole time getting no where, but i guess we can relate it to real life situations.
Ionesco played around with the English way of life, he is mocking the ridiculous conversations in today's day to day society. But as we read through the play you start trying to uncover the underlying storyline and the message.
I agree with georgina when she said that we have to see someone doing something stupid to understand how stupid or ridiculous it really is.
But in the depth of reality we are laughing at ourselves. bye for now xx
First off so sorry mr rutherford for not posting earlier!! Kept forgetting about this new thing!
First of all I’d like to say that I read Georgina’s point "sometimes we have to see someone else doing the stupid thing to understand how stupid and pointless it actually is" and I totally agreed with it! I think she nailed it. While in the Bald Prima Donna, we laughed at the stupid parts and became agitated in the never-ending conversations that would occur between characters (eg: the meeting of mr and mrs martin as to wether or not they were married), if we really analyse this we see that these characters reflect ourselves. While we all try to be different and individual, be intelligent and not look stupid, it is in actual fact we are all much of a muchness. We all live in similar conditions and in the same place, we speak in the same slang and language. We all go to school at the same place and for most of the week have to dress in the same uniform, and when given a choice on what to wear on the weekend, it’s all about looking fashionable, which ultimately means that you all look essentially the same. So in actual fact while we may think ourselves to have an individual style and differences in our life – usually we don’t. Ionesco demonstrates this in The Bald Prima Donna by naming many different people “Bobby Watson” (demonstrating that everyone is much the same and like Lauren said, follows the same trends).
So while we laugh at those in the Bald Prima Donna for being so alike and almost 'fake', we are indeed laughing at ourselves because we try so hard to be like each other, we just don't realise it.
I have no idea if this all makes sense and even ansers the question.. i hope you can understnad it!
we've talked about the aspects of the Bald Prima Donna in class countlessly and every time its talked about, i find there is more and more of a relation between our lives and the play. we can have the most pointless conversations and the majority of the time, depending on how much of an open person you are, you speak every thought on your mind and really no one cares. as miss mac said, some things we say tend to be as if they are automatic such as 'how are you' and thats just something you would generally say to someone, just like a greeting. the trivial parts of The Bald Prima Donna make life's general situations seem like nothing. Ionesco's inspirtation for the Bald Prima Donna also reflect on this question as it is what he sought from learning English and interpreted from the English speaking world - repitition and stating the obvious.
First off, sorry for starting so late with the comments but i have to get used to using this! and wow there are some great responses! I found when reading the play that everything became so dull and repetitive, but the more it when on, the more I noticed how everything in their lives was a big deal. The smallest things meant so much to them, like the story about the man reading the newspaper or tying his shoes. Although, today, we might not talk about such absurb things, but we still seem to bring up these meaningless and random things which people seem to laugh about. Life is absurd and the play is trying to show what our random lives are centred around. The bobby watsons - everyone around us is the same. The ring at the door - we expect someone to be there because someone rang the bell. Life is expressed throughout this play. Everyone still says these weird and random things and because it has become so repetitive and recurring, it is now a way of life. What made me laugh the most was the ending with all the characters saying non-sensical things...nothing really. That was hilarious because no one knew what was going on and frankly they looked like they were on a high! Although we might of laughed at it in the play, it is most certainly what goes on around us today. Too many lollies for example... Theatre of the Absurd makes us laugh at ourselves. Everone loves talking about themsleves. You always want to tell the stroy and always have the best news! So if we love talking about ourselves why not hear people make jokes (not horrible) about ourselves and our way of live. It makes you feel important and stupid at the same time! Why do we watch comedians? They make jokes about us, our lives and whatever involves US! So while we are laughing with ourselves we are also laughing AT ourselves. Absurd?
i agree with most people with the bobby watson aspect of the bald pre madonna, bobby watson represents in the play, how similar everyone is, lots of people have common names, follow the same fashions, sit with the same people, it shows everything is very basic and in a cycle, i think absurdism represents this cyclical aspect of our everyday lives. i agree with danielle when she said how people ask such common boring questions all the time such as 'how are you' when most of the time you really dont care, it shows what a waste of time alot of things are and how pointless the conversations we ungage in are. I believe the bald prima donna forces us to question ourselves alot, for example when learining about this i always realise pointless convesation, for some reason especially with my mum and it just makes me think why do you bother with these convesations when we could be making life more interesting by talking about things we both care about and find interesting instead of feeling awkward, for example in the play with this 'hmm' section, why do we bother engaing in a concesation where we may have nothing better to day then 'hmm'. its really quite absurd.
the bald prima donna is a laugh itself and i think when we started reading this we all had very confused looks on our faces but then understood the humour of the play
the whole bobby watson scene is a pointless conversation that doesnt make sence. I think this shows how we have many converstations like this in our everyday lifes. When reading this in class i also thought of how people say things that they feel they have to say to try and be sympathetic when really they dont mean it at all. "he made the best corpse in great britain" as if someone would say that? it shows how they really did not care that bobby watson was dead - or wel dead for the 5 mintues in the play
the awkard "hm" and "i think we all must have colds" was a really funny scene we read in class. we found this very humourous just because we could relate to this in oureverday lives. one time inanother we all get those awkard silences that no one no hows to get out of them. Ionesco did a great job of exagerating this and making fun of the awkardness.
because we performed in different ways whether it be setting out the exact setting and reading it through or given a place or scenario gives us an insight into peoples interpreation of the bald prima donna , like being given lycra body bags let the audience see the humour in the restriction of movement.
Theatre if the absurd makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine because they play is mocking us. Laughing at the way we talk to each other, the things we say when we mean the totally opposite things. Even the way people are responding to this blog is relevant because many people are expressing how exited they are to be writing a blog entry when really they would much rather be doing something else at the present moment. Like in the scene where mr and Mrs Martin are talking to each other and attempting to recall how they know each other. They do remember they just dont want to, there is no exitement in their life it is boring and pointless. the audience is becoming frustrated with the repitition as it is obvious to us what is going on but they are oblivious to the fact that they are married and have known each other for a long time. The play writer may be trying to comunicate the idea that everyday we do things without thinking it has come natural to us and at the end of the day we dont want to remember those things because there is no point, we get no exitment out of it and are bored with what we do so we just ignore our feelings and follow the croud saying what everyone else would say.
good evening year 10 drama welllllityyyy this blog thing seems pretty impressive
I agree with the majority of people here who sujested the Bobby Watson scene in The Bald Prima Donna because it doesnt point out the pointlessness of the people we all know and the detaisl of their lives, because if Bobby Watsons name was exchanged wiith any other, would it really matter? The Bald Prima Donna also appeals to us and resembles all of our lives because of the useless and pointless conversations that run through everyday. Repeated pointless questions, answers and statements are said everyday when really whats the point in having them because in the end it makes no difference. The interesting thing about the Bald Prima Donna is that it takes these everyday sentances and acts them in a way to show the audience how pointless they really do appear. And how we can spend long amounts of time talking about the most simple things when in the end is doesnt really make a difference and it never will. Liv
OMG i had a whole like 20b million pages that i just wrote and now they are gone bevause i had to get a stupid google account.. BBOOOOOOO!!!!! now i have to write it all again.
ok long story short. absurdist theatre is a massive ridicual of our everyday life. the things that we HAVE to do and the places we HAVE to be. the little things in our life that we HAVE to complete to make us feel better. how stressed would our life be if we didnt live life to our schedual. i was actually thinking the other day that my life is such a boring routine. although every ones thinks they are an individual and they are different, everyone has a routine that they follow. for example. when i wake up i HAVE to wake up at 7.00am and when i get to school everyone HAS to be in mentor at 8.50am and 2 days a week i HAVE to be at work at 3.30pm. its ridiculous and there is nothing we can do about it. personally i think that absurdist theatre is a huge act of making fun of the pathetic lives that we lead. when we see and read plays like the Bald Prima Donna we are shocked by the strange and random outbursts of weird dialogue, physicality and gestures. its hard to explain but absurdist theatre is a cry out of rebellious acts that really have meaning although it may not seem like it. well thats what i think. and i would have had more but my stupid self forgot to save my comment and now its not as good as i had it before.
ok well im not sure if this is on the right track but i reckon absurdist theatre makes us laugh because it applies alot to everyday living and pretty much mocks alot of aspects of our lives.
i agree with the girls saying bobbu watson's represent people around us and that everyone is much the same and always attempt to fit in, be popular etc.
it kinda makes us realise that alot of things are so meaningless like conversation is often pointless just in attempt to avoid awkwardness and avoid silence's like for exmaple when people say "hey how are you" and you answer "im good how are you" they probably dont care how you are its just a way to fill in silence and you may not be good or not care how they are either but you ask to be polite.
our class seems to be pretty fond of the random acts of violence that occurs in theatre of the absurd and demostrate this alot. this makes us laugh but i believe its of great significane to live in general as well considering this type of theatre came about after world war II and outlines the behaviour of mankind etc.
Also we see characters change instantly infront of our eyes in the bald prima donna which is very true! this can be applied to people and their personalities, like moodswings for example.
so yeh i agree with danielle people either find theatre of the arbsurd really funny, boring or annoying but being able to apply it to life gives you a better understanding of the style of theatre so makes it more interesting and funny.
At first i thought tis play was pretty random and the guy that wrote it was...pretty much a freak, but really the bald prima donna is the story of our lives.
i have realised that some of the things that we do in our lives are so riduculous! as they point out in the play we are all smiths, which probably means that we are all boring, we generally do the same things and know the same people.
This play makes me laugh so much because it is very plain and simple yet intriguing.
Everyone had said pretty much the same things,but they are all true.
The Bald Prima Donna helps communicate many messages about the trivialities of everyday life.The Bobby Watson scene shows u how interested we are in gossiping and knowing about other peoples lives, and how much we love discussing simple things about each other that we find interesting. People love to talk about other peoples business and find it entertaining to be able to listen and tell stories that we hear.This is funny because most of the time the things we talk about are so small but we make them a big deal, and turn them into a good topic ofr conversation. The "Hm" scene also shows us how we use simple sounds or words to fill the silences or awkward silences of everyday life, and how humans cant just be silent sometimes.
Theatre of the Absurd makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine because when we watch and read the bold prima donna we see parts of our lives throught the production. We laugh at the fact that the Smiths and Martins are making pointless conversation that in fact makes no sense at all, but then when we go out to lunch, and sit with our friends, it seems we too are doing exactly the same thing, making the next performance we watch or the next read of he script, funnier, as we can relate it to our own lives. i tolatally agree in what bec has said..are we just laughing at our selves?? and why do we find it so funny when we too are doing the same thing??? I think the theatre of absurd makes us laugh with techniques used to enhance the performance, such things as random acts of viloence, silencess, phisicality, voice, random actions and neutral expression makes the audience feel awkward and laugh also because these techniques are ofter elemnts we dont see in our every day lives.
When we first started reading the Bald Prima Donna in class, i missed the first couple of lessons. When i came back, i had no clue what was going on. It was the strangest thing i had ever read in my life. I didnt understand it at all, so i guess Mr. Ionesco got it right.
The Bald Prima Donna looks at life in a very unique and strange way. although it makes our class laugh, it provokes thoughts into my head, as to why Ionseco has written this and what is he trying to say?? I think he would want us to look at life the way his play does. You get the impression that the small things in life are not worth remembering, like with the Martins. I also got the impression that Ionesco thinks we are very basic in our intelligence. He mocks the things we do everyday, for instance having dinner. If you stop and think, how many nights have u eaten dinner, and then thought about what you ate, let alone what country it came from?
I think The Bald Prima Donna's whole point is to make out that life is irrelevant. When we come back to school on a monday, and ask our friend what they did on the weekend, and they say, 'oh i had netball then i went out to dinner with the family and went shopping the next day...' it doesnt exactly change our lives.
Discussing these things on class makes you wonder, are we just simple minded beings who dont really matter? or are we more then that but dont realise it because we are blinded by the unimportant things in life??
The bald Prima Donna makes us laugh for many reasons, one reason is the awkward silences, as miss mac said noone can stand silences and we try to fill them when they happen so because silences rarely happen in our everyday routine when they are used in the play we somehow find them hilarious!!! another reson is the pointless conversations. everyone in our class got so frustrated with the Mr. and Mrs. Martin scene, it just kept going round and round but ended up in the same place arrghh it was funny at first but it just got so annoying! i think Ionesco was trying to get the point across about how pointless some of our everyday conversations can actually be, but alittle over exaggerated. i hope this answers the question. bye
The Bald Prima Donna makes us laugh at the simple things in our lives and this was shown from the different ideas and understandings of the play. As our class talked about it all we found that there were many different ideas and ways that we can relate and respond to the play through plays, class discussions and so on. The different characters like the Smiths, Martins, the Maid, the Fireman and all of the Bobby Watsons all represent different aspects of our lives and how these representations relate to our own lives. As Bec said, the Bald Prima Donna relates to a typical English family and because we all have some sort of Anglo-Saxon background that we are laughing at ourselves. In my opinion, this is a major theme for the play because we are laughing at ourselves and parts of our daily routine that are highlighted in many of the scenes. In the "how very extraordinary" scene when Mr and Mrs Martin find they have met before and many strange coincidences have occured. I thought this showed how we can miss major aspects of our own lives because we are focused on the irrelevant. It is extremely absurd to have of what we believe to be husband and wife realising that they live in the same house, in the same bed and met on a train in the same class and so on. When Mrs Martin repeats "But I have no recolection of it Sir" this symbolises that their lives together have been so boring and uneventful that they have not remembered it. This scene highlights the "importance of ensuring that we examine our lives so that we can move beyond blind acceptance of middle class culture and explore the joys and passions of life" theme of the Bald Prima Donna. It is saying how we need to be enjoying our lives and filling them with joys and passions or you will be dull. I agree with Georgina when she says that we think of the meaningless conversations in the story and laugh at those just because they are pointless. They have no effect on our lives and they just pass time. But speaking of time I laughed at the ridiculous clock chiming. It would be 9 o'clock one minute and the next it would be 5. It was funny because time didn't matter and Mrs Smith was just passing the time with irrelevant conversation. The Bobby Watsons of the story were so absurd they were funny. We had to do a short role play on this where the characters were at a funeral where everybody including the dead person, the speaker, the audience and the rest of the people attending this funeral were all Bobby Watsons. Emily Marshall also made a great point saying how the Bald Prima Donna is an exagerration of our lives. This is significant as the whole play is an exaggeration. It is the exaggeration that makes the trivial parts of our daily routine funny and we laugh because it is just plain absurd. We all love the random aspects to the play because all of the things we laugh at are random. But its also great to laugh at the silly things we do when acting out parts of the play!
hey kids! OMG my class has laughed at the bald prima donna a million trillion times simply because the Smiths talk about absolutely everything that pops into their head. And its funny because thats what we do as teeeeenagers just randomly talk because we hate silences haha buuuuut also its reflection on how pointless, boring, and how simple life is. Like georgie andrews said they focus their attention on the less important facts e.g. the dooorbell this scene makes us laugh a lot becuase its simply pointless and completely random thats all for now kiddos next question now haha
Through reading the Bald Prima Donna in class I’ve started to see how trivial some of the conversations we have are. From the conversations we have on the bus to things we talk about at lunch, like how each others weekends were, when we really don’t care and aren’t even really paying much attention. The conversations don’t really have any more meaning in them than the conversation between mr and mrs smith about her English meal. Whereas while we pretend to be interested in whatever our friend did on the weekend, mr smith doesn’t even bother to pay any attention to mrs smith. I think this kind of shows just how trivial our conversations are and although we may laugh at how pointless mrs smith’s long monologue seems it really isn’t actually that much more pointless than a large number of our own conversations.
This is also shown in the whole ‘how very extraordinary’ conversation. The martins say ‘how very extraordinary and what a strange coincidence’ as if it is the strangest thing they ever heard of that they live in the same house as their husband/wife. Yet they say it in a monotonous voice like they’re programmed to say it and they’re not really even thinking about their responses.
This conversation also makes a link to the fact that although we may think we know our relatives and our close friends really well we actually don’t know them as well as we think we do. Although this conversation was probably the most boring part of any play I’ve ever had to listen to (followed closely by what the smiths had for dinner) Ionesco kind of has a point about the distance between some relationships and how they don’t seem to really know each other that well at all. We laugh at this scene because of how stupid it sounds but I think in actual fact this conversation holds more truth than we’d like to think.
the play, is definetly an original one. It was a total opposite to the predictable yet entertaining melodrama work. I found the bald prima donna to be hard to follow at times and even more to act, sometimes you just were suprised by everyline and every word you would act out to the class. I found that i didnt appreciate the play as much as did when it came the ending were the whole storyline is repeated by the martins.
Overall the play was fresh and original, it made us question our life and how rutine it really is.
i think people relate to the bald prima donna because it concentrates on the meaningless aspects in life that well all have. But on the other hand, we dont linger on thoughts such as why the doorbell is ringing when clearly theres no one there. When I first read this play i thought it was completely pointless, cyclical(?) and really just a waste of time. But during the evening that night i found myself at the dining table talking about the most pointless things and reaching for anything to stop an akward silence from arriving. I realised that the Blad Prima Donna wasn't that far off the mark, just a little over exxagerated. Now, everytime i do something, i question if im doing it because i genuinely want to do it, or if im doing it because its drilled into my system and because its routine, it makes sense.
I thought that when our class was reading the Bald Prima Dona we all thought wow this isn't something that we have done before, it was very differnt and interesting to see the absurd things which were shown in the play. The play was set in an old english home with a married couple (mr and mrs Smith) who talk about whatever comes to there minds, it shows random acts of violence and conversations with each other that makes the play interesting to read and it and it involves the audience in its ridiculous conversations. The play to me was very boring and overwelming but it was very interesting, and clever to see how random acts and repetative conversations can be quite entertaining.To me the play didnt really make sense but it had a very important meaning in the play which is to satire people and how we live our lives. In the absurdist play the characters mostly focus on the attention to project themselves to the audience and to portray the meaningful values in their lives.
The play deals with its use of language and it shows the adsurdist scences which involve the random language in it to produce a more exciting play.
To me the play did become a bit annoying and frustrating to hear the dialogue more than twice and the repetative language but to me it was a very original play and i enjoyed it a lot. =]
Well i have to say that alot of the Bald Prima Donna had me laughing at the trivial things in everyday society... but not for the same resons as everyone else it seems.
I found it funny because even though the play had many over-exaggerations, when i went out to recess after the the first reading, i realised that it isnt as far from reality in our society as it first appears. I think it shows examples of how human beings are born with the natural instinct to want to talk about themselves and what they have been doing more than they want to listen to others. I also loved the way the characters in the story are fascinated and almost excited about simple things such as tying up a shoe lace or a man readin a newspaper. We today may not be amused by things as simple as this...but there is always the saying "small things amuse small minds".
The scene where Mr and Mrs Martin talk about "how extrodinary" and "what a strange coincidence" their lives are compared to each other is hilarious because of the repition and sheer obviousness of their situation. I have to say in class camille and Anna did a hilarious job of this with there drowning voices and long dragged on sentences which made the scene so entertaining.
I think the door bell scene is also a funny interpretation of the way we act in our normal everyday lives. The sound of the bell in our lives is the sign to move are go somewhere eg. school bell means end of class or the beginning of lunch. I like that in the play this idea is changed by having a doorbell ring and no one being at it...hence throwing out previous opinions that come with the sound of a bell.
So far the Bald Prima Donna is turning into a rather entertaining twist on society...cant wait for more!
I think that the reason we find The Bald Prima Donna so funny, is because it stereotypes the lives we are living today!
From the random outbursts of violence to the random silences- it all makes us laugh.
Today in drama, we were talking about the questions you ask people, just so you can tell them about yourself. Example: It’s a Monday morning, and you have just experienced one of the best weekends ever! Even though you don’t really care what your friend did on the weekend, you still ask them, hoping that they will then say... "What did you get up to this weekend?” Basically everyone loves speaking about themselves!! haha!
The Bald Prima Donna makes fun of everyday conversations, relationships, and even the cycle of life. Example: The Bald Prima Donna starts and ends with "Goodness nine o'clock!” This is an example of our lives... We're born, we live, we die- another person is born, they live, they die... etc.
Yes. Well that’s all I have to say and sorry for any spelling mistakes.
The play The Bold Prima Donna makes no realistic sense which is the point of absurd theatre. The play does touch everyday life situations which do make me laugh as on the play most of the conversations is a bunch of non sequitur statements which is really a waste of time as the characters aren’t really listening to each other. It refers to our everyday situations as when you asking your friend how was their weekend when we actually just want to tell them about ours. One scene that makes me laugh is when the maid has this huge speech about the truth about Donald & Elizabeth Martin and she ends her absurd speech with “My real name is Sherlock Homes” it just so funny because it’s so random. I also agree with everyone elses comments your all really smart. And that it from me.
I've been a bit slow to get onto this blog. But its been an advantage in that i've got to read everyone elses replies.
Okay, so with this question, its asking us about why we find it humerous to laugh at our everyday routines. When you think about our lives, and what we do each do, while they may vary slightly each day, especially us as students have very routine lives. We get up each morning, we start school at the exact same time and we finish school at the same time. We laugh during the play at the clock which chimes odd times, but the school bell at our school is represented in the same way technically. Running our lives by time. That was just a small observation i made. What makes us laugh though, in normally in drama and performances you see, there is a problem and there is something that needs to be fixed, basically a story line to keep us entertained, but with the bald prima donna - they are just following their everyday lives, and while it may be common for a lot of people to have ham, mashed potatoes and the rest of it and water for dinner, because it is such an obvious and unthought of action, when someone puts it bluntly in front of you, for some reason we find it humerous. Maybe because it is like stating the obvious in life. The class while we read the bald prima donna out, have each been taking parts and taken to staging it in the performance area with the rest of the class following with their books. Some parts have been interesting but personally i was about to scream when we had camille and someone else doing the whole "how extrodinary, how amazing" scene. It was such a tedious amount of time to listen to them repeating almost the exact same thing in a monotone slow voice, i was ready to leave the room. I think that this could even be representative however of what life itself is like, we have the trivial sections, but we also have sections where we are just fed up and had enough. The bald prima donna is a very closely related novel of life. Thats it for today for me.
Well at this point, after finally being able to get onto the drama blog, i'd have to say that what i have to say is quite similar to what everyone else has said but anyway.. The Bald Prima Donna did make everyone laugh when we were reading it in class, mainly because it was an absurd play, so it didn't make any sense. The many long silences and especially the "hmm" scene really illustrates how awkward people feel in silences in the real world, and fill the silences with "hmm's" because there is nothing else to say. This is strange though however, that everyone would laugh at this, because we do it all the time, when there is a silence or and end of conversation, someone will always feel like they have to fill that silence with something.. even a "hmm" - so essentially we are laughing at ourselves.. (i know other people have said this but i agree) The characters of The Bald Prima Donna comment on 'unusual things they have seen that day' -- they talk about people with their shoelaces undone or people reading the newspaper as very important issues.. this is obviously saying something about our world. In my opinion, Ionesco gave his characters these lines to make a point about the people of the time (still relevant today) not caring about the world and the big issues, but focusing on people with untied shoelaces. I believe that this play is full of important messages like that, but i just chose to focus on those particular ones.
Theatre of the Absurd makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine. How has this been demonstrated in your class reading of The Bald Prima Donna?
When reading the Bald Prima Donna in class we did laugh at the meaningless How Extraordinary conversation and The Ring at the Door scene, but why? It’s a little over exaggerated; otherwise the conversation is perfectly logical. So why were we laughing. It’s because both scenes have pointless dialogue in them. They were funny, because they were true- every one thought what a pointless conversation. It’s only fair Ionesco makes fun of our conversations; I make fun of the year 8’s meaningless conversations that catch my bus “I was like no way, you look hotter then I do!” Just like my brother makes fun of my meaningless conversations “You’ll never guess what happened at school today!” Apart from the fact that it’s funny to laugh at other peoples random conversations, we also laughed at scenes where there were silences and random lines because we found those moments awkward and weird.
Theatre of the Absurd makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine. This has been demonstrated repeatadly by my class while we have been reading and performing the bald prima dona. The reaction to the repetative and cyclical nature of the converstion between the smiths and martins was groaning and wninging as to why they had to talk this way. We all notcied how they tlak about seemingly pointless and worhtless things such as being english, what they ate for dinner and which bobby watson died. I think those last subjects are examples of trivial things htat people talk about in everyday life. Arguing over things and talking about people we know, tv shows, food what we have for lunch what teacher is mean for giving us homework etc. These things are not life changing or even worth mentioning let laone repeatadly throughout the play. The stupidness of this made our class laugh we all found it annoying and yes, funny that the characters woul tlalk onsense over and over again!
while reading the Bald Prima Donna in class we all laughed at many parts throughout the play but a lot of this laughter was simply because we could relate parts of this Absurd play to our own lives.
As Camille mentioned, some of the conversations that took place during this play were perfectly logical, and so it could seem strange that we would laugh at them, except for the fact that we know the converstions, although logical, are absolutely pointless! Not only are we laughing at how pointless these conversations are, but also because the reflect our own lives and the many pointless conversations that we involve ourselves in each day.
There were also many other aspects of the play that made us laugh such as the awkward silences or random actions. I think these things made us laugh because they were not seen as normal and so seemed to be highlighted and attract attention from the audience, and so make us also feel amused in a slightly awkward way, as we are laughing at something that is not usually funny.
The Bald Prima Donna makes us laugh because it is unusual and random, but also because it is perfectly logical and simple and so we can find ourselves laughing at the humour in our own lives aswell.
i types this 3weeks ago but i couldnt log on, so had to get help, sorry.
Ionesco uses symbol and imagery through out the entire bald prima donna; he does this to represent human experiences. For example ionesco has incorporated a lot of the play around the irrelevance of time and its insignificance to the characters, time seems to be flying by without the characters noticing, which makes us think why do we base our lives so much around a time frame and is it really necessary? It seems that the characters use time as a symbol of silence and awkwardness as well as soon as the clock chimes there is something to talk about (i.e. goodness nine o'clock). Also for example I also think that there is a lot of symbolism in the scene with Mr. and Mrs. Martin talking about the train. This scene demonstrates the yearning that people get to be a part of a group or to belong somewhere and even just a yearning to be loved. We saw this through the amount of excitement Mr. and Mrs. Martin had about finding out where they knew each other from, as neither could remember the other one each of them started assuming that they were related before proper proof was given. But then once they realised that they were in fact husband and wife (or so they think) they are quite disappointed and go back to being the boring unexcitable people that they were when the conversation started. I agree a lot with Georgina had to say "because this is an absurdist play Ionesco does not address the issues it is dealing with directly because that would make the play become much more realistic. Instead he decided to confront his desired issues through symbolism in an indirect manner." this is something I had not thought about but agree with.
when my class read the bald prima donna for the very first time we all found it absolutley pointeless how Eugene Ionesco reapeted most of the script including bobby watson, how very extraudinary, and the door bell conversation. we laughed at this because in most peoples lives today, we feel we do not discuss random everyday situations like reading the news paper. but when i thought about it, thats not necessaraly true. we DO repeat the conversations we have today. for example when someone says a joke or just anything funny we laugh at it and will talk about it for maybe the next 10 minutes even if it is as small as someone making a funny sound when they laugh.. (hopefully you understand this. haha its hard to explain!) The Bald Primma Donna has many subliminal messages and at the same time shows entertainment and comedy.
How has studying Theatre of the Absurd enhanced your understanding of Drama? You might like to consider how this performance style is different to the others you have studied (Shakespeare, melodrama, non-realistic, etc).
We learn about how serious life is - war, poverty, sickness and death, even exams. Through my understanding of theatre of the absurd it has actually made me reassess the things we get so worried about, the extremes the world goes to, when really we just need to stop and laugh. Absurdum is the realisation that the small things don't matter - look at life in perspective and there is one thing that stands out:laughter, fun and memories which has definetly been created through studying theatre of the absurd.
It is entirely different to every other topic we have studied and has made me even more confident about the things we worry about,the awkwardness of life and boredom. Life is what you make of it, so just laugh!
Just ignore that comment above, i wrote it in the wrong one.
Well when we were reading the play in class for the first time, everybody was in hysterics. At the end of our studies of theatre of the absurd I now understand that Miss Mac would have to be used to this by now because, well, what were we even laughing at? They were just words, in fact they didn;t even mean anything but the randomness of the dialogue and the break from our monotonous form of communication we are so used to shocked us, and of course our way of dealing with shock, silence and awkwardness is to communicate; and did we laugh.
So really we were laughing at ourselves because we are all Bobby Watson's, all trying to get by and understand but we are all so caught up in the short vocabulary and communication that we forget what life is really about. We talk about things which go around and soon enough we are smacked in the face with the same trivial conversations and ideas. The play definetly represents life however proves everyone has there own way of living it.
70 comments:
Well, you see...because of all the Bobby Watson's we are able to imaging ourselves and our family, friends etc. in the story and we can imagine ourselves having those meaningless conversations. Through reading The Bald Prima Donna we can see how many trivial conversation normal people have every day and how the majority of our discussions are meaningless and actually have no effect at all on our lives. In this absurdist play the characters focus most of their attention, funnily enough, on the least important of the issues in their life, such as debates about doorbells...be right back...don't worry it was nobody. That’s weird; usually when a doorbell rings there is someone at the door. Obviously this is not always true. Anyway, as I was saying in the play they focus on very unimportant things instead of the significant things in their lives. The focus question says “Theatre of the Absurd makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine”. I believe the element of it that makes us able to do this is the fact that when we are part of the trivial conversations we don’t always see how trivial they are. However, when we read through a play and perform it and hear ourselves repeating the same things over and over again it helps us see the light. It doesn’t make sense that I am sitting in the corner throwing my hands up saying, “This is ridiculous!!” during the most frustratingly and annoying times in the play when as soon as the bell rings I and going to sit down outside and eat my recess and have a conversation that may actually be even less important than those in the play, who’s events I was previously questioning. It other words I am trying to say that sometimes we have to see someone else doing the stupid thing to understand how stupid and pointless it actually is. Oh well, I am going to go now and have a very long conversation with my family about the doorbell situation I previously witnessed. It is, after all, extremely significant in my life and is certainly one the most important issues in our world today. That’s not absurd at all!! Right??
Georgina,
Thank you for being the first brave soul to respond! It was an excellent and insightful post, with a nice Absurdist twist.
The play certainly does challenge us to reassess our own lives. I think you're onto something by focusing on 'trivial conversations', seeing as so much of The Bald Prima Donna is concerned with the use (or misuse!) of language. I also liked your point about being able to see things in our own lives by watching situations be played out by other characters on stage. That's the beauty of theatre, it often gives us a perspective that you can't necessarily gain when you're in the midst of an experience yourself.
Any other thoughts? Would someone care to expand on Georgina's response, or propose another way that the play makes us laugh at trivial parts of our everyday routine?
Mr R.
I suppose we all laughed at the bald prima donna because it was just so non-sensical yet we could relate it to real situations.
The whole idea of the absurdist playwrights was to totally question what we do, and make us as the readers and viewers think about that when we see it in front of us.
When you think about it, most of our discussions, much like those in the play, seem to go around and around in circles. I'm sure everyone knows that there is almost always one thing that comes up in class EVERY single day. This is shown through the reaaallly aggravating scene with mr and mrs Martin asking each other where they know each other from(god that got annoying - you know you groaned. dont deny it).
I agree wih Georgie that all the Bobby Watsons represent the people around us. Looking around, you see people in groups, with really similar fashion, hair, the way they talk... practically cloning each other. Maybe that is what Ionesco was trying to hint at. A trend starts, and all of a sudden everyone is following it. this is an issue that never goes away.
Our class kept getting aggravated at all the repetition in the play. We are all very impatient. As ionesco was learning english at the time he wrote the play, is he hinting at how annoyed he was getting with the english language itself. There isnt a single sound for a word, there are soooo many pronounciations, and maybe this was a way of him letting out frustration?
The whole idea of a routine is trivial in itself, dont you think? we prioritise ourselves based on what we consider most important... when really, if we told anyone else the way we spent our time they would probably think we were retarded... so in the play, answering the doorbell, or commenting on the food, is of high priority... and we think thats just plain, well, absurd.
I'm not sure if this really answered the "focus question", but its what comes to my mind in my reactions to the play, which i think is hilarious... in the strangest way possible.
Fascinating interpretations there Lauren. Your reading of the Bobby Watson(s) scene really grabbed my attention. I think that's an extremely contemporary perspective on the play, particularly as we are living in a world where these 'clones' (celebrities, perhaps?) are increasingly visible, splashed across every beauty and gossip magazine. Very interesting. It's nice to see that a play written over fifty years ago can remain relevant to today's society. Thanks for your contribution!
Mr R.
its not letting me publish this fat thing i wrote.
danielle ashworth reports-
Lauren you answer does reflect on the focusing question: Theatre of the Absurd makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine. and i agree with alot of what you are saying many growns when repitition becomes evdiant, and georgina i do also agree and lauren you touched on this too that it makes us reflect on our own lives and the meaningless conversations we undergo, that are really un nessassary and no one care what your answer is anyway for e.g. "how are you".
acting the play has been a mixture of emotions from funny, to borded, to confused which is my interpration of absurdity.
lauren i also liked how you touch on Ionesco and how he may by even learning the language felt the pointlessness of what he was saying and the play itslef maybye expressing his own annoyance he exprenced whilst learnt the language,this is something i hadn't really thought about thanks :)
i do belive the use of language is relavant and very clever, for it has taught me that language isnt your only souce of communictaion, gesture and tone can be fiddled around with to express your thought, this was shown in class when the bald prima donna read "a young claf had eaten too much ground glass"and tash acidently said grass showing how even with the wrong word said we knew what she ment or what the word would usually and should really be.
also i have found though the play seems to go around in circles there is a drmatic structure evidant being shown throughout the play its just the absurd way of seeing it.
i have notice that there isnt usually a median of feelings you are either finding it really funny or really boring, really annoying or really clever.
p.s i cant spell and dont know if this makes much sense.
thats all for now.
over and out.
ddddd dooogggssss (aka danielle, trying to be lame so you focus on my weird ending rather then middle bit :) )
no worries fixed it, ill get the hang of it by the end of the term.
ta tar for now.
hello fellow dramatians...
well i agree with everything you have said! The Bald Prima Donna is a representation of the conversations we have each day and just how meaningless they are. But then why do we find this so funny?
The Bald Prima Donna also symbolizes a typical English family...and considering we all have some sort of Anglo Saxon background... does this mean we are laughing at ourselves?
I definitely agree with what Lauren said…that the bald prima donna reflects Ionesco’s frustration of learning English, considering it is a very inconsistent language. Yet I also believe that Ionesco is aiming to mock the English and ridicule their ways of life. Ionesco may be trying to show that in society we are always trying to be people we are not and we are always trying to be the best. This is shown in the play through the 2 families (Martins and Smiths), who continuously engage in meaningless arguments in order to “out do” the other. This also reflects that the families are of the bourgeois class because they are trying to live up to the capitalist class. And as you said Mr. Rutherford we are living in a world where we try to clone our favourite celebrities and the things we will do or say just to achieve a certain status is ridiculous! Many of the lines and actions in the play represent this theory...and because majority of the lines are absurb, it may be showing that when we try to be people we are not we additionally lose our own identity.
The script is also full of non-sequiturs that suggests the characters are not even listening to each other in their frantic efforts to make their own voices heard. this is particularly amusing for the audience as many ridiculous and absurd things are said!
well that's all i have to say for now...
slaterrrr.
xx bec
“Theatre of the Absurd makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine."
Some aspects of Absurdist Theatre are not actually common occurrences, and they still make us laugh, such as when Mr and Mrs Smith are talking, and she randomly tries to stab him. How many of you can say that that has happened to you on a regular basis? It is the randomness and the oddity of the action that is funny.
I agree with Bec in that through laughing at The Bald Prima Donna and the Absurdist elements it displays, we are actually just laughing at ourselves, because they are things that we do everyday in life, and Absurdist Theatre shows people talking about realistic things, such as what they had for dinner, yet for some reason we find it hilarious. I think it's because it is displaying the fact that the things that we talk about on a daily basis, are absurd. Why be talking about doorbells when you can be talking about other, more important things? Unless the reason we are laughing is not because of just the dialogue, but the way in which it is spoken, e.g monotonously. Or maybe it’s just that the English are particularly hilarious people?
…Maybe not.
Do you actually care what the answer is when someone asks you how you are? Or is it jus an icebreaker? If so, why do we need icebreakers? Do people actually think you want to listen to their stories about Bobby Watson’s? I think the play makes us re-evaluate our lives, and the things that we believe are important, and then it forces us to question it and wonder whether it really matters.
Words are only a small part of our communication, facial expression and body movement count too, and this is demonstrated in Absurdist theatre, in that you are confused by the characters contradicting dialogue and actions, and you wonder, what do they actually mean? What are they trying to say?
People don’t realise how stupid they actually sound when we are whining about doorbells and maids until we see it scripted the way Ionesco has done and read out in class. What effect will it have on you in the big scheme of things if your doorbell has or hasn’t been rung?
So if we realise how stupid talking about these shallow things actually is, can you imagine how odd it must sound to foreigners, e.g Ionesco. Here I agree with Lauren, I think that he did a great job of expressing his frustration with the English language, in the play, the dialogue becomes predictable, and we can almost guess what the characters are going to say next, for example, ‘hm!’
It’s funny to think that we laugh at the conversations of the Smiths and the Martins in the play, and we don’t even realise that when we are talking about shallow things such as fashion and material things at lunch, we are doing the same thing, talking about things that usually don’t matter that much, and we think that the characters in the play are completely deranged for talking about such odd things. But really, if we are having unimportant conversations just as they do, why don’t we consider ourselves to be deranged as well? What hypocrisy!
When we did The Bald Prima Donna we did laugh at certain sections, which did in fact involve our daily routine in society.
I believe the play gave deeper meaning, for example, an everyday thing in which we do is talk to a family member of friend, which is seen in The Bald Prima Donna at the very start when Mrs Smith is talking to Mr Smith, however her dialogue is so pointless and meaningless it seems as though the author is mocking us, and saying a lot of our conversation in everyday life is pointless and meaningless.
I found that the most abusurd components came from the most casual, everyday sitautions such as the door bell scene.
I mean how many of us in our lives have answered to door when someone rings the bell or knocks on it? It happens almost everyday, yet they seemed to make a bizaare situation out of it, then somehow starts an argument about how either "There is never anybody at the door when it rings" OR "There is somebody there at the door when its rings"
Which brings me to my next point, we all read the numerous arguments between Mr & Mrs Smith. Arguing is a part of our everyday lives as well, we might argue with a parent, a friend or a teacher. Yet the arguments between Mr&Mrs Smith (and also between Mr&Mrs Smith and Mr&Mrs Martin) were so pointless, basically about nothing, and we laughed at them. I thought it was funny how Mr&Mrs Smith fought about pointless nothings, but then I thought to myself that a lot of the arguments we have in life are also pointless.
So it's wierd because we are laughing at the characters, and what they are saying and doing, however we do not realise that in a way, we are laughing at ourselves...
wow you guys have really nailed it! I guess that when reading the bald prima donna we realise how trivial our own lives are. Also how meaningless our conversations are in the bigger picture. It also constantly suprised me because the people in it do the opposite of what i expected them to do. If you think about it don't you think that our coversations do't always make sense? and we also point out obvious things to people. The play really grasped my attention because of the obvious situations that confronted us that the characters couldn't see (eg. When the martins were wondering if they had met each other before). I guess we are really just laughing at ourselfs and the stupid, trivial conversations we have everyday of our lives.
The ending of The Bald Prima Donna has a subliminal message saying that really in life we do the same thing. We wake up, go to the bathroom, have breakfast, get ready for the day etc. In life we do the same thing as everyone else just in a different pattern or order. And you could say that, that is the only thing make people different.
The play also shows with the scene when the Martins find out that they have seen eachother before. This scene also shows that perhaps we don't really know our friend and family and we only know what they want us to know.
The Bald Primma Donna has many subliminal messages and that is a great entertaining and thought provoking play.
The ending of The Bald Prima Donna has a subliminal message saying that really in life we do the same thing. We wake up, go to the bathroom, have breakfast, get ready for the day etc. In life we do the same thing as everyone else just in a different pattern or order. And you could say that, that is the only thing make people different.
The play also shows with the scene when the Martins find out that they have seen eachother before. This scene also shows that perhaps we don't really know our friend and family and we only know what they want us to know.
The Bald Primma Donna has many subliminal messages and that is a great entertaining and thought provoking play.
laughing or understanding is the question? As we laugh at this absurb unusual play you begin to look into the depth and true meaning of the message. While preforming the play in class i instantly created a meaning less than understanding, with the meaningless and trivial converstations but as i look at the other girls comments funnily enough i undertand the weirdness. This is not a play i believe this is the start of life (human life)- nothing, then through learning we find purpose in life.
This play is truly inspirational in it absurd way!!!
"For dinner tonight we had cold ham, peas and mashed potatoes"
This would seem like a fairly normal statement if you were describing to someone what you just ate for dinner, however if you took this statement and started to go into great depth about what kind of peas they were, where is the best place to buy them and begin to analyse every single detail about this common english meal, people would probably think you were insane!
At the beginning of the play, this somewhat simple and pointless statement has all of a sudden turned into a very trivial and intense conversation that made us all laugh at what seemed to be the stupidity of the characters and their thoughts.
It is absurd things like this pointless conversation that make us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine. As some of you have previously said, everyday we say and do things that appear to have no meaning to us because we always do them, but as soon as you start to analyse these meaningless actions, they appear to have some significance or just make you laugh at the utter stupidity or randomness of even thinking about them. I think this is what Ionesco was trying to establish and hence, the absurdism of the play is created.
Also, the fact that we all laugh at the numerous non-sequitors throughout the play, is because they are so out of place and weird that we do not know how to react to them, so we just laugh. Perhaps Ionesco wanted to confuse but confront us at the same time?
Hi all absurdists!
Some great comments so far. I raised the point with my class this morning about the way that we all say "How are you?". Do we really mean "How is your health today? I really care..:" or are we just programmed to say it to fill in the silences....... Think about the number of places that we hear "How are you?" - it happens everywhere from Maccas to Woolies...
So, how are you Year 10?
Great thanks Miss Mac! haha
The Bald Prima Donna, I think, is an exaggeration of our lives. I know everyone has said this before, but it's really interesting how the majority of things we do in our lives are absolutely pointless!
I agree with ellie when she said that some aspects of Absurdist Theatre are not actually common occurrences. The reason being that its not really normal for a Fire Chief to come to your front door, come inside, tell really random stories to you and your husband and then just leave saying he has to attend to someone suffering from heartburn, on the other side of London, in three-quarters of and hour and sixteen minutes...is it?
I really like the Bald Prima Donna because most of the things I say and do each day are just like those in the play. I say weird, unecessary things and do weird, unecessary things.
Well I'm off to go and do some more pointless things...haha
xo
Wow it's really hard to know what to write after so many good comments on this topic.
We have come to realise through studying the Bald Prima Donna in class that everyone has different opinions on different aspects of the play and there are many different interpretations. Some things in this absurdist play may seem down right weird and illogical, but really they have more depth than we realise at first. It is the weird part that makes us laugh. When someone does something weird or says something accidentally, offhand like my brother "I eat with my left fork" (have forks become people now too? with right and left hands?), we laugh. So when we hear comments such as "Bobby Watson, the son of old Bobby Watson whose Aunt was Bobby Watson...Bobby Watson...Bobby Watson etc" we find it out of place in the modern society of St Ives. No one in their right mind would call all their children the same name as themselves, uncles, aunties and grandparents; except in childrens books or absurdist plays, but all these names have a much deeper meaning. The Bobby Watsons can be clones as Lauren said, or a representation of the everyday meaningless small talk we have to fill silences.
Another question we can have though, is did all these meaningful thoughts really pass through Ionesco's mind as he wrote this play? Or was he too a bit absurd and just wanted to express himself in a creative, original way? Maybe while learning the English language, he struggled to understand why people talk about such insignificant things and so was simply trying to show, as others said, his frustration at the english language. Or perhaps he was still learning and used annoyingly repetitive phrases simply because of his lack of English vocab?! haha You decide...
i think after reading the prima donna it has become evident that theatre of the absurd most definately portays 'life' and the things that we do in society in general. i think it questions weather the things we do automatically are actually 'normal' or what is normal for that matter? do things really have to be done a certain way? for example in 'The Bald Prima Donna'when the door bell rings they have a debate over weather it means that someone is actually at the door. Some other 'issues' or 'topics' the play brings up is How well do we actually know each other? and Do we really love our loved ones or do we just like the 'idea' of liking them? or loving them? This is portayed when Mr and Mrs Martain go through the process of realising they are husband and wife. Lastly i'd like to add that i believe that the use of 'time' in the play is actually the most important issue raised of all, time is constantly wasted through the duration of the play with meaningless conversations and non- sequiturs and as Bec Quin said they are not even listening to each other - this conveys that we are extremly self centred in society and as Ms Mac says we love to talk about ourselves - time is wasted - time goes around in circles - time repeates itself and is the writer actually mocking theese actions in english life?
hope that made sence
Breana xxx
hello children
yes yes i know that there already is a new focus question..but i rather liked this one so im writing on this blogg..
ohh and by the way miss mac and mr rutherford and miss young...you should all be extremely proud..look how well written the drama girls in our grade are and how enthuastic they all are about theatre of the absurd..you must be teaching us well. :)
annyyyywayyy..
i would like to point out a particular aspect of the play that miss mac touched on; we always talk but never listen.
When played this convention of theatre of the absurd in an over exaggerated way (eg. when Mr Smith, Mrs Smith, Mr Martin and mrs martin are playing wist and talking but not listening)it causes the audience to laugh. An example of this is non-sequiters. I was listening into a conversation betwen two of my friends today at lunch and they we talking about the same general topic (sport) but only from their own perspective. It made me realise the issues raised in The Bald Prima Donna, althoght they may seem far fetched, are still very relevant today.
We quite often find that when laughing at the actors on stage we are actually laughing at our selves, as we have been in the same situation many times before.
I think that the door bell scene is commenting on how we; as human beings, have become programed to respond in certain ways to particular sounds and signals. As Miss Mac said; she has got us to become acustom to responding to her behaviours. For example when she stands in the middle of a class room and says "Hm" we know to stand in a circle and wait for the lesson to begin. Random i know..haha
I also think that we find ourselves laughing during atheatre of the absurd performance because every event is completely unexpected. We may just be laughing at the sheer randomness and shock of the actions shown on stage..but when we walk out of the drama room and reflect on what we had just seen that we see the deeper menings behind the comedic façade.
toodle-loo
P.S. i know i didn't really answer the question directly but i decided to add too and comment on what all the other girls have written. :)
hello everyone
i know many of you have been writing in this as Ms Mac has informed me. i wasnt in class for all of the reading of the play however today in our double lesson we had some very interesting interpretations of the script.
i personally was in tears when kelly christie angie and georgia used the colourful body bags to play out the final four scenes of the play. i have never seen anything so entertaining.
i dont think anyone that wanst in the classroom could understand just how hilarious it was watching these girls perform is.
and yeah thats pretty much it.
toodles
I just tried singing in for YEARS and then I realised that it was on CAPS LOCK!
Theatre of the Absurd makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine.
There were heaps of parts in the Bald Prima Donna when Miss. Mac would ask us what we were laughing at or why we found a particular part so funny. It was the silencio parts and the random lines that made us laugh because we found the moments awkward or just too random.
But (as pretty much everyone has already said) the play write is really making fun of our conversations.
vovo and out
xoxo
ln
Hey drama kids.
I think that the bald prima donna makes us laugh at our everyday routines because of the simpleness of the conversation. For example int he beginning when Mrs Smith is discussing the dinner and the mayonnaise at first glance this conversation is pretty ordinary and bland but then you realise the setting and certain features of the piece that grab your attention as quite strange. This conversation is also interesting as it would seem quite normal to someone who didn't speak fluent english. All the way through the play Ionesco has made parts absurd, most definatly, but whenever he has said something that contradicts the previous lines he has used different words so that only strong english (or in its original form french) speakers would notice the issue. For example "Lucky they didn't have any children." and then "But who will take care of the children?" rather than saying, "they have children." "They don't have children". Well thats my thoughts anyway.
Hannah
We have laughed at many things wilst reading the Bald Primma Donna. we have laughed at
- the uses of silences.its not normal for people to be quiet for long periods of time in todays day and age.
- the actual script has no meaning whatsoever.
- the play focuses on who people really are and their personalities and how people can live together without knowing everything.
- we also laugh at how stupid it is, pointless things like the sky is blue are said,which arent relevant at all.
- the script is also quite random with unexpected things popping up.we laugh at this aswell.
Hello..
well the theatre of Absurd is quite funny i think.
The bald primma Donna absurd as there is no real meaning to any of the things said in the play.
i agree.. it does challenge us to use our own experiences to put into the middle of a sentance that may not make sence.
We laugh at stupid things. like that fact that its stupid all round and nothing makes sence.
like we are english so we drink english tea la la la.. its silly really.
Thanks
"Theatre of the Absurd makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine. How has this been demonstrated in your class reading of The Bald Prima Donna?"
I agree wholeheartly with this statement! (I know i might sound a bit philosphical, bear with me) I think that our whole life is trivial! Everything we do in life, whether it be chatting, silence, surfing the net, meeting firemen, talking about what we had for dinner, or talking about a play! This is because everthing is irrelevant. Ther is always something/one that is worse/better/funnier/sadder. So unless one has experienced the ENTIRE world, then everything is, in theory,trivial!(i may not make sense, but it clicks together in my head)
In our class we have demonstrated and stressed some of the more trivial parts of the play. (but isn't it all?) The class activity that is most prominent in my head is was on monday 20th. That was the day in which we presented our roleplays. My groups theme was loneliness. I won't fully describe our play, but the most trival parts of it was when its that famous "Hm Hm Hm" scene. Each one of our group members has a nervous tick that was presented in that extremely awkward silence. As the silence pressed on, the tick become more and more obvious, showing the audience the amount nervousness that hung in the air. But just the fact that we, mere humans, get a tad nervous at lack on converstion goes to show, just how trivial our lives are. Step back! Look at the bigger picture! Aren't there larger things we should be worrying about on the scale of reality, besides our social manners???
you know its really funny, we've all been reading and acting out The Bald Prima Donna and its made all of us laugh really hard at certain things and we all believe that the whole play is just totally insane and nonsensical, yet once we started to look at it in greater depth, it turns out that pretty much the whole play relates to different parts of our everyday life.
the huge conversation between mr and mrs martin, which was probably the most frustrating part of the play, came across as just three or four pages of boring nothingness and pointless, stupid conversation but it turns out that it actually represents the fact that we, create new relationships and strengthen old ones, may think that we know people really well, but the majority of the time we actually don't really know them at all. we trick ourselves into a false sense of security in a world where we know everything about ourselves and everyone else and we know who our friends are and we know what they are like, but in reality its not like that.
thats one of the things that i found so interesting about this play. it really does help us to see how naive we can be to think that we know everything.
another thing that really intrigued me was the fact that the characters, when they are having those REALLY annoying and pointless conversations, think that they are talking about real issues; they think that they are conducting a perfectly normal and sometimes even deep conversation. it alerts us to the fact that we can often be talking to some one and be thinking that we are really getting to know them and discussing big and important issues but then you look back and realise how materialistic and trivial the conversation has actually been.
the whole play is full of issues that relate to us so closely and reading it really makes you look around at the way that you act and the way you are. its so fascinating.
The Bald Prima Donna makes us laugh because of the simplistic and trivial parts of our everyday routine. This is shown through the cyclical nature of the play. This is shown through the "How very extraordinary" conversation and "Goodness! 9 o'clock!" But i don't understand how this can be that funny as we ourselves live in a cyclical way. Every morning we go through a routine i.e. get up, have breakfast, brush teeth etc. Are we just laughing at the "absurdism" of humans and their ways?
The Bald Prima Donna is packed with formalities e.g. "How are you?" "Good evening" etc. This become amusing and sometimes irritating as these phrases seem to lose their meaning when said over and over again. This makes us laugh because the audience now realise that sometimes things are said naturally and subconsciously even if we don't mean to.
There are many trivial parts of our everyday routine that Ionesco makes us laugh about in The Bald Prima Donna.
A particularly funny scene in The Bald Prima Donna was the “Hm” conversation. The simplicity of Ionesco writing “Hm” for about a page reduced our class to hysterics when we acted it out in class. After reading this scene, we discussed a lot of things like how it is apart of human nature to fill in silences, and also the reason why we have why we have people over to our house. In the case of the Smith’s and the Martin’s is it just that they feel they need to out of politeness. Why is it that the Martin’s are invited to the Smith’s place if all they do is make “hm” noises to fill up the silences? Clearly they have nothing to talk about, so we need to question why they are there.
As other people have discussed, Ionesco questions if we actually listen when people talk to us, or are we thinking about other more “important” or sensational events that have happened to us to add to the conversation. This idea can be seen when the Martin’s and Smith’s play whist. Clearly the characters aren’t listening to each other as they yell out statements that don’t fit in at all with the rest of the conversation. Something as simple and trivial as communication, which is apart of our everyday routine, is definitely questioned in the play.
In the play The Bald Prima Donna, something as trivial as tying up shoelaces becomes funny because of the characters reaction. The characters find a story about someone tying up a shoelace an entertaining conversation for about half a page. They are so as captivated by something so ridiculously trivial, that the playwright makes us laugh.
Many of the long stories that the fireman tells are extremely trivial. The story about “The Cold” goes on for about a page. Normally we just tell someone we have a cold, and not go on about who we got it off and who they got it off, and who they got if off and so on. When we also tell someone we have a cold, we don’t begin telling them with the statement “The Cold” and go on with the story. The fact that a simple trivial matter such as informing one about having a cold is so long winded and formal makes it so hilarious!
bye for now
There are many factors in the play The Bald Prima Donna that make us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine.
In The Bald Prima Donna there are meaningless conversations and babbling which make most of our conversations with other people seem pointless and have no meaning to them at all.
An example that shows the way theatre of the absurd makes us laugh at parts of our everyday routine is the part in the play when the doorbell rings and Mrs Smith goes to answer it and nobody is there.
This happens a few times and there is never anyone at the door until Mr Smith answers it.
Mr Smith says “When you hear a ring at the bell, it’s because there is someone at the door who rings the bell so that someone else can go answer it.”
The audience knows what to do when the doorbell rings, it is clear to us, but they are making such a big deal about answering the door it becomes funny.
I agree with what Bec Quinn said about how Ionesco is aiming to mock the English people and make fun of their ways of life.
The way he shows this is through the conversations that the characters have with each other, that are pointless and have no meaning.
He also shows this with the first part of the play, when Mrs Smith talks about food and the way the ‘English’ is continuously repeated.
And also the way in which the Smiths and the Martins get very excited about a man Mrs Martin saw doing up his shoelace.
Ionesco could be making a point about how what we talk about and the conversations that we have, really don’t mean anything at all, and are meaningless with no reason behind them.
I also agree with Ellie V and the point she made about, that when we laugh at these characters about what they say and do, in a way we are actually laughing at ourselves.
i found the bald prima donna to be absurd to say the least, the story goes on and on in a battle againsed reality. It is inevitable that the story will have to end at some point, but the plot keeps going along in no particular direction so it keeps you guessing for the slightest hint of a climax, or near ending. It uses the dull and meaningless words and phrases of the english language to make a satire of our language and poing out how very trivial our language is. A great example of this is the fresh maionase scene where Mrs Smith tells her husband what they had for dinner when he should allwready know since he has eaten it. I believe that Ionesco was stating that we could cut half of the dialogue out of our lives and still understand one another. The reason that the Bald Primma Donna to me is so funny, is that he uses phrases that clearly dont have a point and do not fit together.
im not sure if i have answered the focus question .. but i think that every one summed it up pretty nicely alltogether.
"Theatre of the Absurd makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine. How has this been demonstrated in your class reading of The Bald Prima Donna?"
(I’m a bit late on the first entry but anyways. By the way, everyone’s done really well on this!)
Theatre of the Absurd represents the meaningless and incomprehensible routines and ways of our day-to-day lives, which the Bald Prima Donna portrays. I agree with Bec Quinn, stating, “Ionesco is aiming to mock the English and ridicule their ways of life. Ionesco may be trying to show that in society we are always trying to be people we are not and we are always trying to be the best.” I believe that he is definitely mocking and stereotyping the pointless discussions and routines of not just the English but everyone.
As the audience/responders of the play, we see just how pointless our conversations can be and seeing this demonstrated in a play really makes us question our daily conversations and lives. This absurdist play makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routines by pointing out some of the factors in our lives that we consider a routine and a way of life but the play symbolizes it as meaningless and unimportant. This can be noted in the section where Mr. and Mrs. Martin do not know if they are married and cannot remember where they have met and or if they have ever met before. This symbolizes the lack of importance of marriage in our society today and shows the frequent brokenness arising between relationships in the real world. To not know if a person is your partner, really represents your marriage as unimportant and therefore means nothing to the characters which are having a ridiculous and annoying but hilarious conversation about their forgotten pasts and lives ‘together’. I found performing this section funny to begin with but irritating towards the end because the conversation kept repeating itself and was going nowhere.
In the play, the characters conversations are very dull and illogical, especially seen in the section where Mr. and Mrs. Martin along with Mr. and Mrs. Smith are having a discussion and when it comes to gossiping they were shocked and fascinated by the stupid idea of someone tying up their shoelaces in public. I found this to be extremely hilarious and I believe that this incident represents our society’s love of gossip and nosing into other peoples businesses since our lives seem to become more interesting with what other people have done and are doing. I also agree with Georgina and the point she made about us having to see someone else doing stupid things to understand how stupid and pointless that thing actually is.
Its funny how the play makes us reflect on our own lives. I realised the amount of pointless conversations i have every day and in effect point them out to people, uh.. poinlessly.
The Bald Prima Donna basically pokes a stick at how we are all the same which i personally disagree with. But if we all were called Bobby Watson and looked the same i can see where Eugene Ionesco is coming from.
If i had a fruit salad today, i'm not likely to go into detail on what kind of fruit was in it, where i got it from and what knife my mum used to cut it with. But I like the touch that Ionesco put on the characters in the play and the way the actions contradict the dialogue. Random is funny and for a guy who initially couldnt speak English he did a good job
"Theatre of the Absurd makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine. How has this been demonstrated in your class reading of The Bald Prima Donna?"
heyy guys
well im pretty sure you have all nailed when it comes to answering the focus question. Personally i think it's funny that the trivial aspects of The Bald Prima Donna reflect on our every day lives. It constantly went around in circles the whole time getting no where, but i guess we can relate it to real life situations.
Ionesco played around with the English way of life, he is mocking the ridiculous conversations in today's day to day society. But as we read through the play you start trying to uncover the underlying storyline and the message.
I agree with georgina when she said that we have to see someone doing something stupid to understand how stupid or ridiculous it really is.
But in the depth of reality we are laughing at ourselves.
bye for now
xx
First off so sorry mr rutherford for not posting earlier!! Kept forgetting about this new thing!
First of all I’d like to say that I read Georgina’s point "sometimes we have to see someone else doing the stupid thing to understand how stupid and pointless it actually is" and I totally agreed with it! I think she nailed it. While in the Bald Prima Donna, we laughed at the stupid parts and became agitated in the never-ending conversations that would occur between characters (eg: the meeting of mr and mrs martin as to wether or not they were married), if we really analyse this we see that these characters reflect ourselves. While we all try to be different and individual, be intelligent and not look stupid, it is in actual fact we are all much of a muchness. We all live in similar conditions and in the same place, we speak in the same slang and language. We all go to school at the same place and for most of the week have to dress in the same uniform, and when given a choice on what to wear on the weekend, it’s all about looking fashionable, which ultimately means that you all look essentially the same.
So in actual fact while we may think ourselves to have an individual style and differences in our life – usually we don’t. Ionesco demonstrates this in The Bald Prima Donna by naming many different people “Bobby Watson” (demonstrating that everyone is much the same and like Lauren said, follows the same trends).
So while we laugh at those in the Bald Prima Donna for being so alike and almost 'fake', we are indeed laughing at ourselves because we try so hard to be like each other, we just don't realise it.
I have no idea if this all makes sense and even ansers the question.. i hope you can understnad it!
we've talked about the aspects of the Bald Prima Donna in class countlessly and every time its talked about, i find there is more and more of a relation between our lives and the play. we can have the most pointless conversations and the majority of the time, depending on how much of an open person you are, you speak every thought on your mind and really no one cares. as miss mac said, some things we say tend to be as if they are automatic such as 'how are you' and thats just something you would generally say to someone, just like a greeting. the trivial parts of The Bald Prima Donna make life's general situations seem like nothing. Ionesco's inspirtation for the Bald Prima Donna also reflect on this question as it is what he sought from learning English and interpreted from the English speaking world - repitition and stating the obvious.
First off, sorry for starting so late with the comments but i have to get used to using this!
and wow there are some great responses!
I found when reading the play that everything became so dull and repetitive, but the more it when on, the more I noticed how everything in their lives was a big deal. The smallest things meant so much to them, like the story about the man reading the newspaper or tying his shoes. Although, today, we might not talk about such absurb things, but we still seem to bring up these meaningless and random things which people seem to laugh about. Life is absurd and the play is trying to show what our random lives are centred around. The bobby watsons - everyone around us is the same. The ring at the door - we expect someone to be there because someone rang the bell. Life is expressed throughout this play.
Everyone still says these weird and random things and because it has become so repetitive and recurring, it is now a way of life.
What made me laugh the most was the ending with all the characters saying non-sensical things...nothing really. That was hilarious because no one knew what was going on and frankly they looked like they were on a high! Although we might of laughed at it in the play, it is most certainly what goes on around us today. Too many lollies for example...
Theatre of the Absurd makes us laugh at ourselves. Everone loves talking about themsleves. You always want to tell the stroy and always have the best news! So if we love talking about ourselves why not hear people make jokes (not horrible) about ourselves and our way of live. It makes you feel important and stupid at the same time!
Why do we watch comedians? They make jokes about us, our lives and whatever involves US!
So while we are laughing with ourselves we are also laughing AT ourselves. Absurd?
i agree with most people with the bobby watson aspect of the bald pre madonna, bobby watson represents in the play, how similar everyone is, lots of people have common names, follow the same fashions, sit with the same people, it shows everything is very basic and in a cycle, i think absurdism represents this cyclical aspect of our everyday lives. i agree with danielle when she said how people ask such common boring questions all the time such as 'how are you' when most of the time you really dont care, it shows what a waste of time alot of things are and how pointless the conversations we ungage in are. I believe the bald prima donna forces us to question ourselves alot, for example when learining about this i always realise pointless convesation, for some reason especially with my mum and it just makes me think why do you bother with these convesations when we could be making life more interesting by talking about things we both care about and find interesting instead of feeling awkward, for example in the play with this 'hmm' section, why do we bother engaing in a concesation where we may have nothing better to day then 'hmm'. its really quite absurd.
the bald prima donna is a laugh itself and i think when we started reading this we all had very confused looks on our faces but then understood the humour of the play
the whole bobby watson scene is a pointless conversation that doesnt make sence. I think this shows how we have many converstations like this in our everyday lifes. When reading this in class i also thought of how people say things that they feel they have to say to try and be sympathetic when really they dont mean it at all. "he made the best corpse in great britain" as if someone would say that? it shows how they really did not care that bobby watson was dead - or wel dead for the 5 mintues in the play
the awkard "hm" and "i think we all must have colds" was a really funny scene we read in class. we found this very humourous just because we could relate to this in oureverday lives. one time inanother we all get those awkard silences that no one no hows to get out of them. Ionesco did a great job of exagerating this and making fun of the awkardness.
thats all tonight sorry about the spelling!
because we performed in different ways whether it be setting out the exact setting and reading it through or given a place or scenario gives us an insight into peoples interpreation of the bald prima donna , like being given lycra body bags let the audience see the humour in the restriction of movement.
Theatre if the absurd makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine because they play is mocking us. Laughing at the way we talk to each other, the things we say when we mean the totally opposite things.
Even the way people are responding to this blog is relevant because many people are expressing how exited they are to be writing a blog entry when really they would much rather be doing something else at the present moment.
Like in the scene where mr and Mrs Martin are talking to each other and attempting to recall how they know each other. They do remember they just dont want to, there is no exitement in their life it is boring and pointless. the audience is becoming frustrated with the repitition as it is obvious to us what is going on but they are oblivious to the fact that they are married and have known each other for a long time.
The play writer may be trying to comunicate the idea that everyday we do things without thinking it has come natural to us and at the end of the day we dont want to remember those things because there is no point, we get no exitment out of it and are bored with what we do so we just ignore our feelings and follow the croud saying what everyone else would say.
good evening year 10 drama
welllllityyyy this blog thing seems pretty impressive
I agree with the majority of people here who sujested the Bobby Watson scene in The Bald Prima Donna because it doesnt point out the pointlessness of the people we all know and the detaisl of their lives, because if Bobby Watsons name was exchanged wiith any other, would it really matter?
The Bald Prima Donna also appeals to us and resembles all of our lives because of the useless and pointless conversations that run through everyday. Repeated pointless questions, answers and statements are said everyday when really whats the point in having them because in the end it makes no difference.
The interesting thing about the Bald Prima Donna is that it takes these everyday sentances and acts them in a way to show the audience how pointless they really do appear. And how we can spend long amounts of time talking about the most simple things when in the end is doesnt really make a difference and it never will.
Liv
OMG i had a whole like 20b million pages that i just wrote and now they are gone bevause i had to get a stupid google account.. BBOOOOOOO!!!!! now i have to write it all again.
ok long story short. absurdist theatre is a massive ridicual of our everyday life. the things that we HAVE to do and the places we HAVE to be. the little things in our life that we HAVE to complete to make us feel better. how stressed would our life be if we didnt live life to our schedual. i was actually thinking the other day that my life is such a boring routine. although every ones thinks they are an individual and they are different, everyone has a routine that they follow. for example. when i wake up i HAVE to wake up at 7.00am and when i get to school everyone HAS to be in mentor at 8.50am and 2 days a week i HAVE to be at work at 3.30pm. its ridiculous and there is nothing we can do about it. personally i think that absurdist theatre is a huge act of making fun of the pathetic lives that we lead. when we see and read plays like the Bald Prima Donna we are shocked by the strange and random outbursts of weird dialogue, physicality and gestures. its hard to explain but absurdist theatre is a cry out of rebellious acts that really have meaning although it may not seem like it. well thats what i think. and i would have had more but my stupid self forgot to save my comment and now its not as good as i had it before.
so chio..x
ok well im not sure if this is on the right track but i reckon absurdist theatre makes us laugh because it applies alot to everyday living and pretty much mocks alot of aspects of our lives.
i agree with the girls saying bobbu watson's represent people around us and that everyone is much the same and always attempt to fit in, be popular etc.
it kinda makes us realise that alot of things are so meaningless like conversation is often pointless just in attempt to avoid awkwardness and avoid silence's like for exmaple when people say "hey how are you" and you answer "im good how are you" they probably dont care how you are its just a way to fill in silence and you may not be good or not care how they are either but you ask to be polite.
our class seems to be pretty fond of the random acts of violence that occurs in theatre of the absurd and demostrate this alot. this makes us laugh but i believe its of great significane to live in general as well considering this type of theatre came about after world war II and outlines the behaviour of mankind etc.
Also we see characters change instantly infront of our eyes in the bald prima donna which is very true! this can be applied to people and their personalities, like moodswings for example.
so yeh i agree with danielle people either find theatre of the arbsurd really funny, boring or annoying but being able to apply it to life gives you a better understanding of the style of theatre so makes it more interesting and funny.
em
At first i thought tis play was pretty random and the guy that wrote it was...pretty much a freak, but really the bald prima donna is the story of our lives.
i have realised that some of the things that we do in our lives are so riduculous! as they point out in the play we are all smiths, which probably means that we are all boring, we generally do the same things and know the same people.
This play makes me laugh so much because it is very plain and simple yet intriguing.
.x
Everyone had said pretty much the same things,but they are all true.
The Bald Prima Donna helps communicate many messages about the trivialities of everyday life.The Bobby Watson scene shows u how interested we are in gossiping and knowing about other peoples lives, and how much we love discussing simple things about each other that we find interesting. People love to talk about other peoples business and find it entertaining to be able to listen and tell stories that we hear.This is funny because most of the time the things we talk about are so small but we make them a big deal, and turn them into a good topic ofr conversation.
The "Hm" scene also shows us how we use simple sounds or words to fill the silences or awkward silences of everyday life, and how humans cant just be silent sometimes.
anna x
Theatre of the Absurd makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine because when we watch and read the bold prima donna we see parts of our lives throught the production.
We laugh at the fact that the Smiths and Martins are making pointless conversation that in fact makes no sense at all, but then when we go out to lunch, and sit with our friends, it seems we too are doing exactly the same thing, making the next performance we watch or the next read of he script, funnier, as we can relate it to our own lives.
i tolatally agree in what bec has said..are we just laughing at our selves?? and why do we find it so funny when we too are doing the same thing???
I think the theatre of absurd makes us laugh with techniques used to enhance the performance, such things as random acts of viloence, silencess, phisicality, voice, random actions and neutral expression makes the audience feel awkward and laugh also because these techniques are ofter elemnts we dont see in our every day lives.
Hi everyone.
When we first started reading the Bald Prima Donna in class, i missed the first couple of lessons. When i came back, i had no clue what was going on. It was the strangest thing i had ever read in my life. I didnt understand it at all, so i guess Mr. Ionesco got it right.
The Bald Prima Donna looks at life in a very unique and strange way. although it makes our class laugh, it provokes thoughts into my head, as to why Ionseco has written this and what is he trying to say?? I think he would want us to look at life the way his play does. You get the impression that the small things in life are not worth remembering, like with the Martins. I also got the impression that Ionesco thinks we are very basic in our intelligence. He mocks the things we do everyday, for instance having dinner. If you stop and think, how many nights have u eaten dinner, and then thought about what you ate, let alone what country it came from?
I think The Bald Prima Donna's whole point is to make out that life is irrelevant. When we come back to school on a monday, and ask our friend what they did on the weekend, and they say, 'oh i had netball then i went out to dinner with the family and went shopping the next day...' it doesnt exactly change our lives.
Discussing these things on class makes you wonder, are we just simple minded beings who dont really matter? or are we more then that but dont realise it because we are blinded by the unimportant things in life??
It makes you think...
The bald Prima Donna makes us laugh for many reasons, one reason is the awkward silences, as miss mac said noone can stand silences and we try to fill them when they happen so because silences rarely happen in our everyday routine when they are used in the play we somehow find them hilarious!!!
another reson is the pointless conversations. everyone in our class got so frustrated with the Mr. and Mrs. Martin scene, it just kept going round and round but ended up in the same place arrghh it was funny at first but it just got so annoying! i think Ionesco was trying to get the point across about how pointless some of our everyday conversations can actually be, but alittle over exaggerated.
i hope this answers the question.
bye
The Bald Prima Donna makes us laugh at the simple things in our lives and this was shown from the different ideas and understandings of the play.
As our class talked about it all we found that there were many different ideas and ways that we can relate and respond to the play through plays, class discussions and so on. The different characters like the Smiths, Martins, the Maid, the Fireman and all of the Bobby Watsons all represent different aspects of our lives and how these representations relate to our own lives.
As Bec said, the Bald Prima Donna relates to a typical English family and because we all have some sort of Anglo-Saxon background that we are laughing at ourselves. In my opinion, this is a major theme for the play because we are laughing at ourselves and parts of our daily routine that are highlighted in many of the scenes.
In the "how very extraordinary" scene when Mr and Mrs Martin find they have met before and many strange coincidences have occured. I thought this showed how we can miss major aspects of our own lives because we are focused on the irrelevant. It is extremely absurd to have of what we believe to be husband and wife realising that they live in the same house, in the same bed and met on a train in the same class and so on.
When Mrs Martin repeats "But I have no recolection of it Sir" this symbolises that their lives together have been so boring and uneventful that they have not remembered it. This scene highlights the "importance of ensuring that we examine our lives so that we can move beyond blind acceptance of middle class culture and explore the joys and passions of life" theme of the Bald Prima Donna. It is saying how we need to be enjoying our lives and filling them with joys and passions or you will be dull.
I agree with Georgina when she says that we think of the meaningless conversations in the story and laugh at those just because they are pointless. They have no effect on our lives and they just pass time. But speaking of time I laughed at the ridiculous clock chiming. It would be 9 o'clock one minute and the next it would be 5. It was funny because time didn't matter and Mrs Smith was just passing the time with irrelevant conversation.
The Bobby Watsons of the story were so absurd they were funny. We had to do a short role play on this where the characters were at a funeral where everybody including the dead person, the speaker, the audience and the rest of the people attending this funeral were all Bobby Watsons. Emily Marshall also made a great point saying how the Bald Prima Donna is an exagerration of our lives. This is significant as the whole play is an exaggeration. It is the exaggeration that makes the trivial parts of our daily routine funny and we laugh because it is just plain absurd. We all love the random aspects to the play because all of the things we laugh at are random. But its also great to laugh at the silly things we do when acting out parts of the play!
hey kids!
OMG my class has laughed at the bald prima donna a million trillion times simply because the Smiths talk about absolutely everything that pops into their head. And its funny because thats what we do as teeeeenagers just randomly talk because we hate silences haha buuuuut also its reflection on how pointless, boring, and how simple life is. Like georgie andrews said they focus their attention on the less important facts e.g. the dooorbell this scene makes us laugh a lot becuase its simply pointless and completely random
thats all for now kiddos next question now haha
Through reading the Bald Prima Donna in class I’ve started to see how trivial some of the conversations we have are. From the conversations we have on the bus to things we talk about at lunch, like how each others weekends were, when we really don’t care and aren’t even really paying much attention. The conversations don’t really have any more meaning in them than the conversation between mr and mrs smith about her English meal. Whereas while we pretend to be interested in whatever our friend did on the weekend, mr smith doesn’t even bother to pay any attention to mrs smith. I think this kind of shows just how trivial our conversations are and although we may laugh at how pointless mrs smith’s long monologue seems it really isn’t actually that much more pointless than a large number of our own conversations.
This is also shown in the whole ‘how very extraordinary’ conversation. The martins say ‘how very extraordinary and what a strange coincidence’ as if it is the strangest thing they ever heard of that they live in the same house as their husband/wife. Yet they say it in a monotonous voice like they’re programmed to say it and they’re not really even thinking about their responses.
This conversation also makes a link to the fact that although we may think we know our relatives and our close friends really well we actually don’t know them as well as we think we do. Although this conversation was probably the most boring part of any play I’ve ever had to listen to (followed closely by what the smiths had for dinner) Ionesco kind of has a point about the distance between some relationships and how they don’t seem to really know each other that well at all. We laugh at this scene because of how stupid it sounds but I think in actual fact this conversation holds more truth than we’d like to think.
the play, is definetly an original one. It was a total opposite to the predictable yet entertaining melodrama work. I found the bald prima donna to be hard to follow at times and even more to act, sometimes you just were suprised by everyline and every word you would act out to the class. I found that i didnt appreciate the play as much as did when it came the ending were the whole storyline is repeated by the martins.
Overall the play was fresh and original, it made us question our life and how rutine it really is.
i think people relate to the bald prima donna because it concentrates on the meaningless aspects in life that well all have. But on the other hand, we dont linger on thoughts such as why the doorbell is ringing when clearly theres no one there. When I first read this play i thought it was completely pointless, cyclical(?) and really just a waste of time. But during the evening that night i found myself at the dining table talking about the most pointless things and reaching for anything to stop an akward silence from arriving. I realised that the Blad Prima Donna wasn't that far off the mark, just a little over exxagerated. Now, everytime i do something, i question if im doing it because i genuinely want to do it, or if im doing it because its drilled into my system and because its routine, it makes sense.
I thought that when our class was reading the Bald Prima Dona we all thought wow this isn't something that we have done before, it was very differnt and interesting to see the absurd things which were shown in the play.
The play was set in an old english home with a married couple (mr and mrs Smith) who talk about whatever comes to there minds, it shows random acts of violence and conversations with each other that makes the play interesting to read and it and it involves the audience in its ridiculous conversations.
The play to me was very boring and overwelming but it was very interesting, and clever to see how random acts and repetative conversations can be quite entertaining.To me the play didnt really make sense but it had a very important meaning in the play which is to satire people and how we live our lives. In the absurdist play the characters mostly focus on the attention to project themselves to the audience and to portray the meaningful values in their lives.
The play deals with its use of language and it shows the adsurdist scences which involve the random language in it to produce a more exciting play.
To me the play did become a bit annoying and frustrating to hear the dialogue more than twice and the repetative language but to me it was a very original play and i enjoyed it a lot. =]
hello everyone =]
Well i have to say that alot of the Bald Prima Donna had me laughing at the trivial things in everyday society... but not for the same resons as everyone else it seems.
I found it funny because even though the play had many over-exaggerations, when i went out to recess after the the first reading, i realised that it isnt as far from reality in our society as it first appears. I think it shows examples of how human beings are born with the natural instinct to want to talk about themselves and what they have been doing more than they want to listen to others. I also loved the way the characters in the story are fascinated and almost excited about simple things such as tying up a shoe lace or a man readin a newspaper. We today may not be amused by things as simple as this...but there is always the saying "small things amuse small minds".
The scene where Mr and Mrs Martin talk about "how extrodinary" and "what a strange coincidence" their lives are compared to each other is hilarious because of the repition and sheer obviousness of their situation. I have to say in class camille and Anna did a hilarious job of this with there drowning voices and long dragged on sentences which made the scene so entertaining.
I think the door bell scene is also a funny interpretation of the way we act in our normal everyday lives. The sound of the bell in our lives is the sign to move are go somewhere eg. school bell means end of class or the beginning of lunch. I like that in the play this idea is changed by having a doorbell ring and no one being at it...hence throwing out previous opinions that come with the sound of a bell.
So far the Bald Prima Donna is turning into a rather entertaining twist on society...cant wait for more!
I think that the reason we find The Bald Prima Donna so funny, is because it stereotypes the lives we are living today!
From the random outbursts of violence to the random silences- it all makes us laugh.
Today in drama, we were talking about the questions you ask people, just so you can tell them about yourself. Example: It’s a Monday morning, and you have just experienced one of the best weekends ever! Even though you don’t really care what your friend did on the weekend, you still ask them, hoping that they will then say... "What did you get up to this weekend?” Basically everyone loves speaking about themselves!! haha!
The Bald Prima Donna makes fun of everyday conversations, relationships, and even the cycle of life. Example: The Bald Prima Donna starts and ends with "Goodness nine o'clock!” This is an example of our lives... We're born, we live, we die- another person is born, they live, they die... etc.
Yes. Well that’s all I have to say and sorry for any spelling mistakes.
Georgia
The play The Bold Prima Donna makes no realistic sense which is the point of absurd theatre. The play does touch everyday life situations which do make me laugh as on the play most of the conversations is a bunch of non sequitur statements which is really a waste of time as the characters aren’t really listening to each other. It refers to our everyday situations as when you asking your friend how was their weekend when we actually just want to tell them about ours.
One scene that makes me laugh is when the maid has this huge speech about the truth about Donald & Elizabeth Martin and she ends her absurd speech with “My real name is Sherlock Homes” it just so funny because it’s so random.
I also agree with everyone elses comments your all really smart.
And that it from me.
I've been a bit slow to get onto this blog. But its been an advantage in that i've got to read everyone elses replies.
Okay, so with this question, its asking us about why we find it humerous to laugh at our everyday routines. When you think about our lives, and what we do each do, while they may vary slightly each day, especially us as students have very routine lives. We get up each morning, we start school at the exact same time and we finish school at the same time.
We laugh during the play at the clock which chimes odd times, but the school bell at our school is represented in the same way technically. Running our lives by time.
That was just a small observation i made.
What makes us laugh though, in normally in drama and performances you see, there is a problem and there is something that needs to be fixed, basically a story line to keep us entertained, but with the bald prima donna - they are just following their everyday lives, and while it may be common for a lot of people to have ham, mashed potatoes and the rest of it and water for dinner, because it is such an obvious and unthought of action, when someone puts it bluntly in front of you, for some reason we find it humerous. Maybe because it is like stating the obvious in life. The class while we read the bald prima donna out, have each been taking parts and taken to staging it in the performance area with the rest of the class following with their books. Some parts have been interesting but personally i was about to scream when we had camille and someone else doing the whole "how extrodinary, how amazing" scene. It was such a tedious amount of time to listen to them repeating almost the exact same thing in a monotone slow voice, i was ready to leave the room. I think that this could even be representative however of what life itself is like, we have the trivial sections, but we also have sections where we are just fed up and had enough. The bald prima donna is a very closely related novel of life.
Thats it for today for me.
Well at this point, after finally being able to get onto the drama blog, i'd have to say that what i have to say is quite similar to what everyone else has said but anyway..
The Bald Prima Donna did make everyone laugh when we were reading it in class, mainly because it was an absurd play, so it didn't make any sense. The many long silences and especially the "hmm" scene really illustrates how awkward people feel in silences in the real world, and fill the silences with "hmm's" because there is nothing else to say. This is strange though however, that everyone would laugh at this, because we do it all the time, when there is a silence or and end of conversation, someone will always feel like they have to fill that silence with something.. even a "hmm" - so essentially we are laughing at ourselves.. (i know other people have said this but i agree)
The characters of The Bald Prima Donna comment on 'unusual things they have seen that day' -- they talk about people with their shoelaces undone or people reading the newspaper as very important issues.. this is obviously saying something about our world. In my opinion, Ionesco gave his characters these lines to make a point about the people of the time (still relevant today) not caring about the world and the big issues, but focusing on people with untied shoelaces.
I believe that this play is full of important messages like that, but i just chose to focus on those particular ones.
Theatre of the Absurd makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine. How has this been demonstrated in your class reading of The Bald Prima Donna?
When reading the Bald Prima Donna in class we did laugh at the meaningless How Extraordinary conversation and The Ring at the Door scene, but why? It’s a little over exaggerated; otherwise the conversation is perfectly logical. So why were we laughing. It’s because both scenes have pointless dialogue in them. They were funny, because they were true- every one thought what a pointless conversation. It’s only fair Ionesco makes fun of our conversations; I make fun of the year 8’s meaningless conversations that catch my bus “I was like no way, you look hotter then I do!” Just like my brother makes fun of my meaningless conversations “You’ll never guess what happened at school today!”
Apart from the fact that it’s funny to laugh at other peoples random conversations, we also laughed at scenes where there were silences and random lines because we found those moments awkward and weird.
Theatre of the Absurd makes us laugh at the trivial parts of our everyday routine. This has been demonstrated repeatadly by my class while we have been reading and performing the bald prima dona. The reaction to the repetative and cyclical nature of the converstion between the smiths and martins was groaning and wninging as to why they had to talk this way. We all notcied how they tlak about seemingly pointless and worhtless things such as being english, what they ate for dinner and which bobby watson died. I think those last subjects are examples of trivial things htat people talk about in everyday life. Arguing over things and talking about people we know, tv shows, food what we have for lunch what teacher is mean for giving us homework etc. These things are not life changing or even worth mentioning let laone repeatadly throughout the play. The stupidness of this made our class laugh we all found it annoying and yes, funny that the characters woul tlalk onsense over and over again!
while reading the Bald Prima Donna in class we all laughed at many parts throughout the play but a lot of this laughter was simply because we could relate parts of this Absurd play to our own lives.
As Camille mentioned, some of the conversations that took place during this play were perfectly logical, and so it could seem strange that we would laugh at them, except for the fact that we know the converstions, although logical, are absolutely pointless! Not only are we laughing at how pointless these conversations are, but also because the reflect our own lives and the many pointless conversations that we involve ourselves in each day.
There were also many other aspects of the play that made us laugh such as the awkward silences or random actions. I think these things made us laugh because they were not seen as normal and so seemed to be highlighted and attract attention from the audience, and so make us also feel amused in a slightly awkward way, as we are laughing at something that is not usually funny.
The Bald Prima Donna makes us laugh because it is unusual and random, but also because it is perfectly logical and simple and so we can find ourselves laughing at the humour in our own lives aswell.
i types this 3weeks ago but i couldnt log on, so had to get help, sorry.
Ionesco uses symbol and imagery through out the entire bald prima donna; he does this to represent human experiences. For example ionesco has incorporated a lot of the play around the irrelevance of time and its insignificance to the characters, time seems to be flying by without the characters noticing, which makes us think why do we base our lives so much around a time frame and is it really necessary? It seems that the characters use time as a symbol of silence and awkwardness as well as soon as the clock chimes there is something to talk about (i.e. goodness nine o'clock).
Also for example I also think that there is a lot of symbolism in the scene with Mr. and Mrs. Martin talking about the train. This scene demonstrates the yearning that people get to be a part of a group or to belong somewhere and even just a yearning to be loved. We saw this through the amount of excitement Mr. and Mrs. Martin had about finding out where they knew each other from, as neither could remember the other one each of them started assuming that they were related before proper proof was given. But then once they realised that they were in fact husband and wife (or so they think) they are quite disappointed and go back to being the boring unexcitable people that they were when the conversation started.
I agree a lot with Georgina had to say "because this is an absurdist play Ionesco does not address the issues it is dealing with directly because that would make the play become much more realistic. Instead he decided to confront his desired issues through symbolism in an indirect manner." this is something I had not thought about but agree with.
23.8.07
when my class read the bald prima donna for the very first time we all found it absolutley pointeless how Eugene Ionesco reapeted most of the script including bobby watson, how very extraudinary, and the door bell conversation. we laughed at this because in most peoples lives today, we feel we do not discuss random everyday situations like reading the news paper. but when i thought about it, thats not necessaraly true. we DO repeat the conversations we have today. for example when someone says a joke or just anything funny we laugh at it and will talk about it for maybe the next 10 minutes even if it is as small as someone making a funny sound when they laugh..
(hopefully you understand this. haha its hard to explain!)
The Bald Primma Donna has many subliminal messages and at the same time shows entertainment and comedy.
How has studying Theatre of the Absurd enhanced your understanding of Drama? You might like to consider how this performance style is different to the others you have studied (Shakespeare, melodrama, non-realistic, etc).
We learn about how serious life is - war, poverty, sickness and death, even exams. Through my understanding of theatre of the absurd it has actually made me reassess the things we get so worried about, the extremes the world goes to, when really we just need to stop and laugh. Absurdum is the realisation that the small things don't matter - look at life in perspective and there is one thing that stands out:laughter, fun and memories which has definetly been created through studying theatre of the absurd.
It is entirely different to every other topic we have studied and has made me even more confident about the things we worry about,the awkwardness of life and boredom. Life is what you make of it, so just laugh!
Just ignore that comment above, i wrote it in the wrong one.
Well when we were reading the play in class for the first time, everybody was in hysterics. At the end of our studies of theatre of the absurd I now understand that Miss Mac would have to be used to this by now because, well, what were we even laughing at? They were just words, in fact they didn;t even mean anything but the randomness of the dialogue and the break from our monotonous form of communication we are so used to shocked us, and of course our way of dealing with shock, silence and awkwardness is to communicate; and did we laugh.
So really we were laughing at ourselves because we are all Bobby Watson's, all trying to get by and understand but we are all so caught up in the short vocabulary and communication that we forget what life is really about. We talk about things which go around and soon enough we are smacked in the face with the same trivial conversations and ideas. The play definetly represents life however proves everyone has there own way of living it.
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