Theatre’s New Threshold: A Review of Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd: Camus, Beckett, Ionesco, Genet and Pinter

This review of Reassessing the Absurd: Camus, Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, and Pinter looks positively on Michael Y. Bennett’s new book. It aims to explain how Bennett revises Martin Esslin’s canonical text The Theatre of the Absurd and seeks to revitalize the concept of Absurdism from what Bennett considers to be misreading of Camus and Sartre, along with the negative connotation of the term Absurdism. This review also explores in greater detail the debt that Bennett’s work owes to the writings of Victor Turner and his concept of liminality. Bennett’s work is ultimately a valuable new study of great works of contemporary theatre.