The Absurd Professor in the Theater of the Absurd

The Absurd Professor in the Theater of the Absurd ALEXANDER FISCHLER "Cher docteur imprevisibJe et routinier. Certainement nous cultivcrons votre memoire:' Robert Pingel. Idenlife (I. v), SINCE INCONGRUITY CHARACTERIZES THE PROFESSOR whenever he appears on a conventional Western stage, one wonders what happens to this traditionally absurd figure when he enters the theater of the absurd with looesco and Adamov_One anticipates an answer based on the algebraic model of two "negatives" combining to yield a "positive_ " But this proves to be absurd mathematical reasoning worthy of Ionesco's professor, that is, mostly, though not entirely, false. Negative and positive poles are particularly hard to determine in this case. The professor resists congruity even when he is featured in a sentimental or happy ending. His incongruity is congeoital and absolute; he is at odds not only with his surroundings, but with his own self; he is a two-sided figure, combining, for instance, the character of victim with that of executioner, or concealing an intensely active nature under a contemplative mask; his absurdity is a function of his ambiguity; being a simulacrum, all words and pose, he is ideally suited to any theater and can make the most contrived action around him on stage pass for real life. The theater of the absurd could not make the absurd professor seem logical any more than it could make him blend harmoniously with his surroundings. However, by accentuating and accelerating the disjointedness of character, setting and situation, the displace13 ? 138 ALEXANDER FISCHLER ment, as Simone Benmussa would call it,I the theater of the absurd turned the professor into a central figure for the representation of man's condition in the modern world, in a way neither Mr. Chips nor his cousins, Moliere's Docteurs, could have represented it. Ionesco's Professor and Adamov's Taranne, the central figures considered here, are obviously steeped in the tradition of the stage professor, a tradition which for both its comic and tragic effects supposes a link with everyday life and reality. This link survives, though it has become extremely tenuous, and though the figures on stage now seem to re-enact everyday nightmare in patterns that are as unlife-like as possible, yet more compelling than ever for all involved. Overcoming the grotesque distortion of displacement and acceleration, this new professor holds the center of the stage and shows disturbing marks of kinship with the more heroic figures whose place he has usurped. How does a professor talk about his own demonstrably absurd type without seeming to re-enact Ionesco's Lesson, down to the rapemurder of the audience, or without revealing, like Taranne, unforgivable and inexplicable lacunae? Is it possible to go back, even armed with scholarly detachment, and re-examine the adventures of a type who is subjected to ridicule and made to seem grotesque all along the line, who arrives with a pomp no circumstance could warrant and indulges in or is subjected to a humiliation that only pathology could excuse? Professors in fiction (I place under this heading all colleagues appearing in literature, on stage and, more recently, on screen) form an ever-receding line, akin to Baudelaire's "Sept Vieillards" (obviously encountered somewhere in the neighborhood of the Rue des Ecoles). The strip tease of Adamov's Taranne is symbolic of the inevitable end of any inquiry into the professor's identity, whether conducted by another professor or not: to be left exposed, not merely hollow, but with a dubious past, a suspicious present, and no future whatever. Yet it seems, and this may be justification for the inquiry, that it is precisely from such an ambiguous stance that the professor has traditionally derived his powers. Beckett, Ionesco and Adamov (at least during the fifties, while they were creating what came to be called the theater of the absurd) tried to destroy once and for all both message and identity in the theater. The stage professor or, rather, professordoctor , turned out to be rather well-suited for their attack. For armed with an identity- one which implied a role in the real world - he nevertheless invariably operates on the fringes. Characteristically, the professor inscribes himself on a non-existent blackboard...