The Bald Soprano

Eugène Ionesco was one of the greatest representatives of the Theatre of the Absurd, whose texts still reflect the ailments of contemporary society. We addressed the play through the lens of sustainability, climate change, technology, and the impossibility of communication, all of which is hidden under the surface of a seemingly simple text that the author wrote while learning English. The rhythm of the text does not let us to immerse ourselves in it and looks like a critique of the society of clickbait headlines, drowning in information released into the public space. A critique of the society which is always rush somewhere and, getting nowhere, and barely acknowledging the destruction of the planet and our relationships. Through the relationship of two couples who find themselves in one of their homes, through their games and meaningless conversations – whose only point is to maintain the rhythm for as long as possible and fill the room with sound and life and not to let that space become reality – we get to know how bourgeois relationships work and that all revolves around pleasing one’s palate, boredom, and sex appeal. The Fire Chief and the Maid, who come from different class backgrounds, fail in their attempts to give this space and life a credible context, some spatial-temporal determinant, and leave without interrupting this series of self-sustained nonsense that is an end to itself. The Bald Soprano addresses the world in which we all live, a world we cannot resist because we only exist when we keep up with it and follow its rules of fast production, accumulation of information, of aesthetic concerns, and of bio-capitalism that offers health at too high a price and that holds individual success as the fundamental proof of one’s value in society.