Esthétique de l’informel dans La Cantatrice Chauve d’Eugène Ionesco

Abstract

The Bald Soprano by Eugene Ionesco is a play that breaks with the tradition of dramatic art. Indeed,
by its composition and internal organization, it represents a staging of the absurd. The latter is captured
through the aesthetics of the chaos characterizing the play, aesthetics that disturbs the viewer-receiver’s
horizon of expectation given that it builds on the informal which manifests itself in the odd imparity of the
scenes, the crisis of the character, and the tragedy of the language. These elements are a deliberate choice of
the playwright. Through this play, Ionesco highlights the inability of man to communicate, understand himself,
and understand the other. Incoherence and absurdity have a privileged expression in the language that takes
the place of action. Instead of an accumulation of the anecdotal facts of the plot, the drama offers a whole play
on language.