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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 842.914
EAN num: 9780802130792
ISBN number: 0802130798
Label: Grove Press
Manufacturer: Grove Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 160
Printing Date: January 12, 1994
Publishing house: Grove Press
Sale Popularity Level: 265468
Studio: Grove Press
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Product Description:
The leading figure of absurdist theater and one of the great innovators of the modern stage, Eugene Ionesco did not write his very first play, The Bald Soprano, until 1950. He went on to become an internationally renowned master of modern drama, famous for the comic proportions and bizarre effects that allow his work to be simultaneously hilarious, tragic, and profound.
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Rated by buyers 
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I sort of grew up with Ionesco. This crazy Romanian turned Frenchman with his absurd stage plays, the Bald Soprano and stuff like that, was synonym for art trash in yahoo speak. He wrote like abstract painters painted. Good honest citizens detested that kind of stuff and complained when theatres and museums who were subsidized by public funds played or diplayed it. Ionesco was the equivalent of Picasso in my home town blue neck cultural perspective. (Please note that I am German, not Kentuckian.
Apologies to Kentucky, should I have said Oklahoma? Anyway, German backwoods are no different.)
Then I take a big leap with the time machine. No encounters with Ionesco since maybe the 60s. Plenty with Picasso though, who became one of my heroes (and one of my favorite writers, P. O'Brian, wrote a good biography, which I reviewed here, but I pulled the review out since nobody was interested).
And now my daughter, who is doing her IB with drama as elective subject, chose The Lesson for her graduation stage production. I read it very first and told her she is crazy. Nobody can play this mad professor who kills his private students after endless absurd monologues on philology (which leads to calamity, as the maid says). As any self-respecting 18 year old would, she ignored my ignorant advice and did it anyway. She found a fantastic actress to do the mad old professor, a 16 year old American Chinese girl who must have been born for this part. And perfect fits for the pupil and the maid as well.
I have not had so much fun in a theatre for a long time. Hail to old Ionesco! And kudos to the producer and director of the play on this day!
Rated by buyers -
I've seen The Bald Soprano and The Chairs performed, and it has been on my list for quite a while to read them both. The other two plays in the volume I saw as a kind of bonus.
The Chairs is the gem in the book. It was just as wonderful to read as it was to see. Ionesco and his feel for the absurdities in language is always charming, but the Chairs combines that sense of fun and the absurd with some very real pathos.
I was not familiar with Jack, and was glad to have a chance to read it. The bride with three noses and the absurd Grandmother and Grandfather Jack are wonderful characters-- I look forward to having an opportunity to see this staged.
Essential reading for people with an interest in the Theater of the Absurd.
Rated by buyers -
As history tells us, the Frenchman Eugene Ionesco was learning English in the late 1940s when he was struck by the arbitrary nature of the sentences used to teach foreign language. ("I have a dog. His name is Spot. My name is Duncan.") Their nihilism and nonsensicality became the basis for his very first play, La cantatrice chauve -- The Bald Soprano. People mostly love it or hate it; I love it. "Experience teaches us that when one hears the doorbell ring it is because there is never anyone there." This is definitely fun. Of Ionesco, I will always say: Worth a read.
Rated by buyers 
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This is simply the worst book that I have ever read. Without any doubts in my mind, I can say that Eugene Ionesco is the luckiest man alive for making money off of this horrible excuse for a book. Do not waste your money on trash like this. Paper wasted on this book could have been used for things much more important. The book was written to not make any sense. Do not try and say that it's funny or absurdist. I could write this filth in less than an hour. Blindfolded. And you could give the computer a spear even. Eugene Ionesco wrote this book for money and nothing else. If you call this book hilarious than you need to go out, see some good movies and then reconsider your thoughts about what is funny and what isn't. Do not waste your money on this book. I have wasted my time reading it thinking that there may be something rewarding at the end, but unsurprisingly it let me down and ended in a fantastically horrible fashion. You can call this book absurdist all you want, but your better off just calling it a fire starter.
Rated by buyers -
The amount of creativity and ingenuity Ionessco holds as a playwright is remarkable. His plays are an inspiration to the avant-garde mind. To be short and sweet, I recommend this collection of plays. If you are an Ionesco fan, I also recommend checking out his literature for children.
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