The metanoia of metacomedy in contemporary Theatre of the Absurd: The film, sitcom, drama, and more (Roberto Benigni, Italy, Christopher Durang, D. M. Thomas)

While there has been a body of critical work on absurd plays, most notably Martin Esslin's The Theatre of the Absurd (1961), there has been scant recognition of contemporary works as absurdist texts. To fill this void, I will examine how the Theatre of the Absurd continues to manifest itself in contemporary texts in technique and effect; how this contemporary manifestation differs from the depiction of characters in earlier absurd texts by way of a greater degree of spiritual change, a transformation beyond the intellectual, which I refer to as “the metanoia of the absurd”; and how this metanoia translates into my own definition of a contemporary Theatre of the Absurd, “metacomedy,” the tragicomic experience of reality.; The metanoiac effect of metacomedy will be examined in contemporary comedies of the absurd—plays by Christopher Durang, the television programs “Ally McBeal” and “Jerry Seinfeld,” a novel by D. M. Thomas, and the 1999 film Life is Beautiful. These multi-genre texts demonstrate a continuation of elements of the absurd that are transformed by a change of spirit in the characters wrought by a tragicomic catharsis.; My study of contemporary absurd texts, therefore, offers a new look at the Theatre of the Absurd and proposes that there is a spiritual dimension of character significantly more developed than in the 1950s and 1960s. My dissertation will discuss my own theory of a genre of literature that I call “metacomedy” and will examine its principal feature, “metanoia,” which composes a characteristic and prominent element in contemporary comedies of the absurd.