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Ronald Tavel: Ridiculous Playwright

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2021

Extract

PAULETTE. What a situation! Hey, are you a real gibbon?

MAIS OUI. That's my God-gibbon destiny, dearie.

Gorilla Queen

A genuine work of art will, by necessity, undermine the social structure and the moral cadre on which our existences are postulated. For a real work of art is, by definition, an act of truth, and our social structure is a lie.

Ron Tavel, “The Theatre of the Ridiculous”

Some of the youngest wave of playwrights, who are not quite as young as they at times pretend to be, find fun in exploring and exploiting the fantasies that fed their parents—movies of the thirties and forties—an entire folk culture of false values—a set of malfunctioning myths rewoven into wildly comic metaphors.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1968 The Drama Review

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