"The early works of which American playwright (best known for ""Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"") reflect an ""Americanisation"" of the Theatre of the Absurd, a movement that found its peak in works by European playwrights such as Jean Genet, Samuel Beckett, and Eugne Ionesco?"
Theatre of the Absurd Adamov, Harold Pinter, Luigi Pirandello, Tom Stoppard, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Miguel Mihura, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Fernando Arrabal, Václav Havel, Edward Albee, Malay Roy Choudhury, Tadeusz Różewicz, Sławomir Mrożek, N.F. Simpson, and Badal Sarkar. In the first edition of "The Theatre of the Absurd", Esslin saw the work of these playwrights as giving artistic meaning to Albert Camus's philosophy that life is inherently without meaning, as illustrated in his work "The Myth of Sisyphus". In the first (1961) edition, Esslin presented the four defining playwrights of the movement as Samuel Beckett, Arthur Adamov, Eugène Ionesco, and Jean Genet, and in subsequent editions he
Theatre of the Absurd as it is, in all its mystery and absurdity, and to bear it with dignity, nobly, responsibly; precisely there are no easy solutions to the mysteries of existence, because ultimately man is alone in a meaningless world. The shedding of easy solutions, of comforting illusions, may be painful, but it leaves behind it a sense of freedom and relief. And that is why, in the last resort, the Theatre of the Absurd does not provoke tears of despair but the laughter of liberation. Playwrights commonly associated with the Theatre of the Absurd include Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Jean Genet, Arthur