Guide Note

Eugene Ionesco's play The Chairs begins with an old man and old woman sitting on chairs in what is implied to be a post-Apocalyptic world. The man walks over to the woman and sits on her lap. She complains that he could have had an important job, but he lacked ambition. He starts telling her the story from the beginning, but cannot remember anything that happened after Paris, which is implied to have been destroyed. He says he will have an Orator finish the story.

The Guests and Orator

The man and woman prepare chairs for invisible guests including an invisible Emperor. In between the arrival of invisible guests the man and woman sit on opposite chairs listen to the conversations between their invisible guests. After the invisible guests have arrived the man states that he and his wife can finally die knowing that his story and philosophy will be told and they commit suicide by throwing themselves out of the window. When the Orator finally speaks to the invisible crowd it is revealed that he is a deaf mute and neither the sounds he makes nor the words he writes on the blackboard can be understood. The play ends with the Orator leaving.

Fast Facts

1. Written by Eugene Ionesco
2. First published by Grove Press
3. Set on a house on an island
4. A one act play
5. Major theme is responsibility
6. First performed on April 22, 1952
7. First performed at the Théâtre Lancry in Paris
8. Genre is absurdist drama
9. Originally directed by Sylvain Dhomme
10. Revived in 1956 in Paris
11. Revived in London in November 2006
12. Influenced by the aftermath of World War II

Quotations

1. ""At the end, at the end of the end of the city of Paris, there was, there was, was what?" — Old Man
2. "The further one goes, the deeper one sinks. It's because the earth keeps turning around, around, around, around" — Old Man