EUGENE IONESCO

(French-Romanian Playwright)
Research Paper
By:

Martha Hernandez
June 1st, 2012
Theater Arts 5
Prof. Anita Adcock

Eugene Ionesco is one of the most significant French-Romanian playwrights of

the 20th century. His notable work is now well recognized around the world. His
masterpieces do not only concentrate on theatrical plays but also a couple textbooks for
children, novels and several articles. Ionesco is mostly well known for his contribution
plays that revolutionized a revolt in dramatic techniques of the theatre. He is considered
to have played a tremendous role of in the revelation of the Theatre of the Absurd,
which it is best defined as a kind of drama that accentuates the absurdness of humanity,
mainly by containing nonsense, confusing, and illogical dialogues between the characters
where also the plot of the story is quite meaningless and irrational.
His life beings in 1909 in Slatina, Romania where a French woman and a
Romanian man welcomed the birth of a boy whom they named Eugene Ionesco. Two
years later, Ionesco became a brother to a baby girl named Marilina. The first years of his
life were tough, not always having a good father-son relationship. In 1914, Ionescos
family decided to move to Paris so that his father would continue studying law and
eventually achieving it. Due to Ionescos delicate health that was caused by anemia his
mother took the decision of sending him and his sister from the urban city to the
countryside to reside along with family members. They enjoyed a peaceful and calm life
during their stay for about 2 years before going back to Paris. They resided in Paris until
1925, in which during that time hard times stroke and his parents separated, obligating
him to move back to Romania with his father. To their surprise Eugenes father was
granted the divorce and obtained full custody of his son and daughter. A newly wed
father and a tense relationship with his father inspired Ionesco to begin writing poetry.

His fathers devotion for the supreme governmental power at that time, his negativity and
repugnant character were the main inspiration for his writing. His father would pursue
him to achieve a career as an engineer but he felt his calling career was in literature and
poetry.
Eventually, he attended University of Bucharest to study literature and where later
he received a degree in French. His first small but marvelous accomplishment was seen
in 1930, when he wrote an article in a magazine called Zodiac, where we can induce it
was his debut as a writer. The following year in 1931, he published a book of poetry
entitled Elegy of Miniscule Beings and just three years later he published a compilation
of essays called Nun(No). It was a book that caused scandal and critics because of the
criticism expressed in the essays. The year of 1936 was both joyful and devastating for
Ionesco. His mother passed away but in the same year he married his wife Rodica
Burileano. During his early-married years, he worked for a couple magazines and
newspaper companies as an article publisher. Due to the beginning of World War II,
Ionesco and his wife Rodica were forced to move out of France and go back to his native
country Romania. Their life in Romania was troublesome, being financially unstable;
they reconsidered going back to Paris. In 1944, they welcomed the birth of a girl whom
they named Marie-France. Just a year after his daughter was born, they finally moved
back to Paris, when it was freed from the Germans. But the struggles still did not come to
an end, due to the war, unemployment rates were high and the only job he was able to
find was as a proofreader for a publisher company. Money was scarce and lived a very
complicated financial situation. In 1948, his father passed away.

Ambitious to learn English at age 40, he started to motivate himself to learn the
language. His method of learning English was based of copying down and memorizing
full sentences, but his method failed to learn the language as a whole. As a result he
learned other things, things that were obvious in our daily life such as there are seven
days in a week but that inspired him to write his first big play. It was written in the same
year of his fathers death. It went under the name of La Cantatrice Chauve translated
in English as The Bald Soprano. Its first production at a theater was in 1950, produced
by Nicholas Bataille. At first the play was not a success until other writers brought it out
to the spotlight. The play contained within its lines a full structure of what is known as
Theater of the absurd. Despite of the struggles of his life in the past years, it appeared
that the beginning of the 1950s was set out to provoke a tremendous successful start as a
French playwright. Writing was not his only attribute; he also tried his talent as an actor
playing the role of Stepan Trofimovitch in Dostoevskis translated in English as The
Possesed. About a year later, another of his plays was staged named La Lecon (The
lesson). In 1951, Les Chaises (The chairs) and The Future is in Eggs were written.
In 1953, he wrote The New Tenant and a story called Oflamme. In this same year,
he debuted as an actor once again staring on his own play called Victimes du
Devoir(Victims of Duty) playing a detective. During an interview published in a book
about his life titled Eugene Ionesco written by Ronald Hayman, Ionesco expressed that
his experience as an actor was very unpleasant, because I had the impression of being
someone else, an actor needs to be able to forget himself and lend his own personality to
the imaginary character and I felt alienated.

In 1955, Jacques ou la Soumission (Jack or the Submission) also came out to be

part of these anti-plays, which is how Ionesco better described them rather than being
called part of the theater of the absurd. From beginning to end, from the characters of the
story to the material objects mentioned, the structure of the story plot is quite interesting.
Containing just one act, the typical story line of a play is rushed; the incoherence of the
characters speech is heavily present at all times and the ridiculousness of the action
happening is noticeable. In 1957, he wrote his first full-length play. This was a very
important play for this French playwright, since he had only written one-act plays for the
past years. This play was named The Killers. In 1958, a scandal surrounded Ionesco
when a writer named Kenneth Tynan published an article on the newspaper The
Observer heavily criticizing Ionescos techniques of drama. Eugene firmly stood against
the author and defended his form of theatre. During this same year, he wrote another play
that was and it is still considered one of his finest plays Rhinoceros. This play was
mainly inspired by his own experiences with the governmental power at the time and his
side about Fascism. It was considered to be an Anti-Nazi play.
His passion for writing did not stop regardless of the many critics that would
haunt him. In 1962 he wrote, Exit The King, Frenzy for Two and A stroll in the
Air. After it followed Hunger and Thirst written in 1966.
His great work and masterpieces were finally starting to be greatly recognized. In
May 8, 1969, he received the medal of Monarco and later in that year he received the
Great National Theatre Prize. The upcoming years were full of surprises for Ionesco.
Great achievements in the history of theatre were accomplished, his plays were now
known all around France, Romania and many other countries around the globe. Very

prestigious awards and medals were awarded to this terrific French playwright for his
great work in theatre. Some of these awards include The Tours Festival Prize for Film,
Prix Italia, Society of Authors theatre prize, Austrian State Prize for European Literature,
Monte-Carlo International Prize of Contemporary Art, Molire prize, Jerusalem Prize,
Max Reinhardt-medal, T S. Eliot-Ingersoll-prize, La Flche medal, Mayenne medal, and
honorary doctorates from New York University and the universities of Louvain (France),
Warwick (England), and Tel Aviv (Israel). In 1970, to expand his achievements, Ionesco
was given membership at the Acadmie Franaise (French Academy), which is a very
prestigious academy that consists of only forty carefully selected members. Later in this
year, he also participated on his own film about his own story titled The Mire. To add
up more to his collection in 1973, he published Macbett and wrote What a Hell of a
Mess and in 1981 Journeys among the dead was written.
After so many years of successfully written over 28 plays, in 1989 his health was
starting to be severely affected. From the beginning of this date until his death, he took
the choice of leaving his writing and instead he opted for painting. His last years of life
were spent creating paintings and exhibiting them at art galleries. That took a course of
only 5 years until his physical body could no longer stay awake. He died at his home in
Paris, in 1994.
His legacy long remains. Even though most of his work was written in French,
that didnt stop his native country Romania from admiring him and considering him as
one of their most extraordinary writers. Not only is he honored in Europe, but many
countries around the world that adapt his plays and stage them for the public to remember
the great Eugene Ionesco. Without his master productions we wouldnt have an

introduction to the theatre of the absurd, regardless of his discomfort with the reference
name of such theatre. If Ionesco wouldve been still alive, we can all be sure that he
would repeat to us these exact same words I find the name theatre of the absurd which
has been glued on to us is absolutely meaningless. All theatre is absurd. Long live in our
memories, the great Eugene Ionesco.

Reference Page
I.
II.
III.

Hayman, Ronald. (1976). Eugene Ionesco World Dramatists

http://www.ionesco.org/vie-en.html
http://www.untitledtheater.com/Ionescobio.htm