Golgotha Again?

GOLGOTHA AGAIN? IT IS DISCONCERTING TO EXPERIENCE the world on the stage, but in The Killer) it is there all the same. The atmosphere hovers over the action, a metaphysical cloud in our midst; on the stage, the machinations of our humdrum, hurried worlC~. Only now our dream of the radi,ant city is realized, a corporate crystal construction, a perfection of architectural logistics, programmed, prefabricated, ready for occupancy. Who built it? It doesn't matter. There are many possibilities, many contractors. Pick an ideology, any ideology. The radiant city is yours for the asking, with .its architect servant of the system, protected and cleansed by the powers that be; with the poJiticiancalling for an end to (blank) and a reconstruction of (blank) ... step up ... sign here ... step up. The there is Edouard, your friend, petty, small, weak, servile, neutral and quite dead. His death accomplishes the death of his age. There is the liberal man of intelligence, calling for heroes and dying in an alcoholic catharsis. Finally, there is Berenger, you and me (for do any of us own up to being any of the characters other than Berenger?). He is middle class, middle aged, paunchy, common, regular, median, and human. On the stage, the social milieu, in the air, the cloud of our condition; in our chairs, home, safe, you and me. Comfortable. For a while. We are aware that the. play is about the System, the Establishment, the State, and we feel good because we have labelled a part. There is security in labelling. We know that the play has characters representing the crowd, the bureaucrat-all those who have. sacrificed individual will to functions. Fine! So far the world is familiar. Everybody is writing about those people. What begins to bother us is that at the point where his contemporaries instruct, Ionesco remains silent. Just where does he stand? His characters, except for Berenger, are all devoid of passion; they have no sympathy for each other; there is no human understanding or communication; rapport among individuals is impossible; no one shares interest in the affairs of others. Each is solely concerned with his individual function; love is unknown as is its meaning; human relationships are cold, blunt, and uncaring. These are not unique characteristics, but are found in the work of many artists. In fact, there is general agreement that modern man is alienated , selfless, loveless, etc. So why, we think, doesn't Ionesco come up with a new plan? Where is his solution? vVith what forces does he feel man will prevail? Where is the new philosophy? The new vision? The new ideology? Why doesn't Berenger kill the Killer? We scream, for we are very upset now. Some few of us realize Ionesco is changing the rules of the game. Now we are in for it. To begin with, Ionesco does not believe that we can change social 1971 GOLGOTHA AGAIN? 225 conditions for the better by the techniques by which we normally manipulate them. "\/Vhat revolutions rule out is man's irrevocable subjection to the boundaries of the human condition. "The saviors of mankind," he writes, "have founded inquisitions, invented concentration camps, constructed crematory ovens, established tyrannies. Look around you: Wars, catastrophes and disasters, hatred and persecution, confusion, death lying in wait for all of us, we talk without understanding each other, we struggle as best we can in a world that appears to be in the grip of some terrible fever." "Is not man," Ionesco asks, "the sick animal?" It is the symptoms and the nature of this illness that comprise the body of Ionesco's work. What is wrong is not the weakness of this system or that, but the inevitable transformation of idealism into despotism. "... It is the human condition that directs the social (or, as they are called) the objective conditions." IonescD seeks commitment to the human condition as a whole. This is necessarily an artistic commitment. The human condition as a fact has always confronted man, and art is the record and testimony of their meeting. So let us examine Berenger, for is he not a good measure of human responses? He is shy, prone to daydreams, subject...