Martin Julius EsslinOBE was a Hungarian-born British producer, dramatist, journalist, adaptor and translator, critic, academic scholar and professor of drama, known for coining the term "theatre of the absurd" in his 1962 book The Theatre of the Absurd. This work has been called "the most influential theatrical text of the 1960s".
Life and work
Born Pereszlényi Gyula Márton in Budapest, Esslin moved to Vienna with his family at a young age. He studied Philosophy and English at the University of Vienna and later studied directing under Max Reinhardt at the Reinhardt Seminar of Dramatic Arts in 1928; actor Milo Sperber was a classmate. Of Jewish descent, he fled Austria in the wake of the Anschluss of 1938, moving to Brussels for a year and then moving on to England. In his book, Theatre of the Absurd, written in 1962, he defined the "Theatre of the Absurd" as follows: This attribute of "absurdity" was not accepted by many of the playwrights associated with this trend. Playwright Eugène Ionesco stated that he did not like labels. Ahmad Kamyabi Mask criticized Esslin for a purported "colonialist" quality of this title for the Avant-garde theater. However, his work inspired other playwrights such as Samuel Beckett, Arrthur Adamov, Jean Genet, and Harold Pinter. He began working for the BBC in 1940, serving as a producer, script writer and broadcaster. He headed BBCRadio Drama from 1963–77, having previously worked for the external European Service. He was later given the position of Head of Radio Drama, in which he tried to bring to life his dream of "national theatre of the air". He and his BBC team also translated many foreign works into English during this time. After leaving the BBC he held senior academic posts at Florida State University from 1969 to 1976 and Stanford University from 1977 to 1988. In 1977, Esslin joined the Magic Theatre as the first resident dramaturg in American theatre, a position now integral to American new playhouses. Some of the works he adapted and translated from the original German between 1967 and 1990 included many plays of Wolfgang Bauer. Original works included Theatre of the Absurd, Absurd Drama, Brecht: A Choice of Evils, The Anatomy of Drama, The Peopled Wound: The Work of Harold Pinter, Artaud and The Age of Television, The Field of Drama, and several other essays, articles, and reviews. In 1947, he married Renate Gerstenberg, and they worked together on many translations. They had a child named Monica.
