The Totally Perceptive and Logical Illogic of the Avant-garde Dramatic Tradition; or Politics = Theater = Politics

Turn-of-the-century ‘Pataphysician Alfred Jarry wrote several plays that showed the relation between theater and politics. In the absurd mode of ‘Pataphysics, both Ubu Roi and César Antichrist featured hyperbolically narcissistic and corrupt dictators that presaged political relations in the twenty-first century. Harold Pinter’s plays continue Jarry’s depictions of power, but in Pinter’s plays, the powerful figures have disappeared, replaced by invisible threats, again showing the ways the political is quintessentially theatrical.