one technique of medieval drama--as in the second shepherds' play--was to
The Second Shepherds' Play The Second Shepherds' Play (also known as The Second Shepherds' Pageant) is a famous medieval mystery play which is contained in the manuscript HM1, the unique manuscript of the Wakefield Cycle. These plays are also referred to as the Towneley Plays, on account of the manuscript residing at Towneley Hall. The plays within the manuscript roughly follow the chronology of the Bible and so were believed to be a cycle, which is now considered not to be the case.[1] This play gained its name because in the manuscript it immediately follows another nativity play involving the shepherds. In fact, it has been hypothesized that the second play is a revision of the first.[2] It appears that the two shepherd plays were not intended to be performed together since many of the themes and ideas of the first play carry over to the second one.[3] In both plays it becomes clear that Christ is coming to Earth to redeem the world from its sins. Although the underlying tone of The Second Shepherd's Play is serious, many of the antics that occur among the shepherds are extremely farcical in nature.
Theatre of the Absurd Critic Martin Esslin coined the term in his 1960 essay "Theatre of the Absurd".[2] He related these plays based on a broad theme of the Absurd, similar to the way Albert Camus uses the term in his 1942 essay The Myth of Sisyphus.[3] The Absurd in these plays takes the form of man's reaction to a world apparently without meaning, or man as a puppet controlled or menaced by invisible outside forces. This style of writing was first popularized by the Samuel Beckett play Waiting for Godot (1953). Although the term is applied to a wide range of plays, some characteristics coincide in many of the plays: broad comedy, often similar to vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichÃ©s, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism and the concept of the "well-made play". These plays were shaped by the political turmoil, scientific breakthrough, and social upheaval going on in the world around the playwrights during these times.[citation needed]