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Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd: Camus, Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, and Pinter . By Michael Y. Bennett . New York : Palgrave Macmillan , 2013. Pp. xii + 179. $27/£16.26 Pb.
In the preface to the paperback edition of his book, Michael Y. Bennett responds to the scholarly reception of its first printing (in hardcover in 2011) and endeavours to clarify the book's aim and intention. The book is not meant to replace Martin Esslin's The Theatre of the Absurd (1961), he states. Rather it is meant to complement it, providing contrasting readings of absurdist plays, thereby 'freeing' these texts from a type of critical straitjacketing. Whereas Esslin posits that absurdist drama represents metaphysical anguish and hopelessness, Bennett submits that these plays 'revolt against existentialism and are ethical parables that...