The Merriam-Webster Encylopedia of Literature
Drama in 11 scenes by Eugene Ionesco, who called it an "antiplay." It was first produced in 1950 and published in 1954 as La Cantatrice chauve; the title is also translated The Bald Prima Donna. The play, an important example of the Theater of the Absurd, consists mainly of a series of meaningless conversations between two couples that eventually deteriorate into babbling.
The Bald Soprano & Other Plays: The Lesson, Jack or the Submission, The Chairs FROM THE PUBLISHER
The leading figure of absurdist theater and one of the great innovators of the modern stage, Eugene Ionesco (1909-94) did not write his 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. As Ionesco has said, "Theater is not literature... It is simply what cannot be expressed by any other means."
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