A Bakery in the Mind: Sound and Emotion in David Ives’s Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread

David Ives’s one-act play ‘Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread’ imitates the structure, rhythm and melody characteristic of the musical scores of Philip Glass. Fragments, broken phrases and sentences reveal more about the nature of human emotional states than could a more ‘rational’ and conventionally structured text. The dramatic action is the dialogue itself. Although Ives’s verbal nonsense is wittily composed, much of the performance relies on sound and rhythm. To reveal the structure and force of this short play, the author views Ives’s work in the light of the philosophy of the Theatre of the Absurd. In addition, the essay explores how by combining the techniques of slapstick, improvisation, and television sitcom, David Ives adds a new element to the Absurdist repertoire. His vignette is an homage to that avant-garde movement rather than just a parody.