One Hundred Years Later, Caragiale is Still with Us!
The growing wealth of information on I. L. Caragiale may both baffle researchers and exhaustively illuminate some of the most intriguing aspects of his drama.Even if researchers are reluctant to consider Caragiale as being representative of the Theater of the Absurd, one cannot ignore the refined way in which the dramatist approached the grotesque, whom he granted a superior, spiritualized dimension. While observing the world’s intrinsic monstrosity, the dramatist considered it as a perennial characteristic of social laws whose mechanisms have got out of control, affecting nonplussed people exhibiting an amazing adaptation to the times. The present paper analyzes several such situations and characters and draws several analogies between Caragiale’s drama and the Theater of the Absurd.
Keywords: I. L. Caragiale, theater, characters, theater directors, the Theater of the Absurd