The Chairs

E494282

The Chairs is a seminal absurdist play by Eugène Ionesco that portrays an elderly couple preparing an ever-growing number of empty chairs for invisible guests in a bleak, existential farce.

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All labels observed (2)

Label Occurrences
The Chairs canonical 2
Fauteuils d’orchestre 1

Statements (46)

Predicate Object
instanceOf absurdist play
play
associatedWith Theatre of the Absurd movement NERFINISHED
author Eugène Ionesco NERFINISHED
centralMotif empty chairs
invisible audience
countryOfOrigin France
dramaticDevice absurd dialogue
metatheatrical elements
repetition
dramaticStructure one-act play
dramaticTone bleak
comic
tragicomic
feature ever-increasing number of empty chairs
invisible guests
form dramatic text
genre Theatre of the Absurd NERFINISHED
absurdist theatre
farce
tragicomedy
hasAuthorNationality Romanian-French
hasProtagonistsAge elderly
languageStyle circular conversations
nonsensical speech
literaryPeriod 20th-century drama
mainCharacters Old Man NERFINISHED
Old Woman NERFINISHED
medium stage performance
movement French avant-garde theatre
notableFor exploration of existential themes through farce
minimalist setting
use of invisible characters
originalLanguage French
philosophicalContext post-war existentialism
setting a room in a house on an island
subjectMatter failure of communication
human loneliness
search for meaning
theme absurdity of human existence
communication breakdown
existentialism
isolation
meaninglessness of life
old age
writer Eugène Ionesco NERFINISHED

Referenced by (3)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Eugene Ionesco notableWork The Chairs
Christopher Thompson notableWork The Chairs
this entity surface form: Fauteuils d’orchestre