An Arts Council Agility Award allows Bernadette Cronin, with GAITKRASH
colleagues Regina Crowley and Mick O’Shea, to collaborate with Louis Lovett of
https://theatrelovett.com/ and Michael Anthony Greene on an exploration of Eugene
Ionesco’s classic absurdist play THE CHAIRS in a recent adaptation by director
Omar Elerian. We gratefully acknowledge the generosity of Omar Elerian in allowing
us to explore with his adapted script. We also express our sincere thanks to Naomi
Daly and all the team at https://everymancork.com/ and to Department of Theatre
and Drama Studies at MTU for affording us space to play and experiment!
“At certain moments the world seems to be devoid of meaning, and reality seems unreal. It is this feeling of the unreal, the search for an essential reality, forgotten and nameless — apart from which I do not feel that I exist — that I have tried to express through these characters of mine who wander about inarticulately, having nothing of their own aside from their anguish, their remorse, their frustration, the emptiness of their lives. Being submerged in the meaningless cannot be other than grotesque, their tragedy can only excite laughter. Since I find the world incomprehensible, I am waiting for someone to explain it to me… [this play should] convey my own feelings as to the unreality of the world.”
“It’s not a certain society that seems ridiculous to me, it’s mankind.”
“Laughter. . . laughter. . . , certainly I cannot say I do not try to arouse laughter; however, that is not my most important object! Laughter is merely the by-product of a dramatic conflict that one sees on the stage, or that one does NOT see if the play is a comedy, but then it is still implied, and laughter comes as a reprieve: we laugh so as not to cry. . . “. Eugene Ionesco, Interview, 1949