In the Absurd We Trust: Please Mind the Existential Gap

Imagine a man condemned to push a boulder up a hill for all eternity, only to watch it roll back down. On day 4,092, he snaps. He paints a face on the boulder, names it “Greg,” and starts charging admission for interpretive dance battles between them and sells “You Can’t Win” t-shirts. Welcome to absurdism, where logic has left the building, meaning is stuck in traffic, and the show must go on, especially when it makes absolutely no sense. Find out more in In the Absurd We Trust: Please Mind the Existential Gap

Absurdism marched onto the literary stage in the mid-20th century, right around the time humanity looked at the rubble of two world wars. Rooted in a deep sense that meaning had quietly left the building, absurdist literature responded with characters lost in loops, conversations that go nowhere, and plots that abandon resolution like a bad habit.

At its core, absurdism is the philosophical theory that the universe is irrational and meaningless, and that our desperate attempts to find meaning crash headfirst into that cosmic indifference.
Søren Kierkegaard, one of the earliest philosophers to try this out, basically looked into the abyss and said, “This makes no sense… but let’s believe anyway.” Camus later took up the baton and replied, “Or don’t.”

There are times when the world feels too strange or too loud to be explained by logic. That’s exactly where absurdist comes in, not to solve the chaos, but to sit in it, laugh at it, and maybe even find some comforting beauty inside it.

Take Albert Camus’ “The Stranger”: Meursault (the protagonist) doesn’t cry at his mother’s funeral and later shoots a man because, essentially, it was a hot day. The real crime might be his lack of SPF. He’s emotionally detached, disinterested in society’s rules, and deeply relatable to anyone who’s ever stared blankly at an Outlook calendar invite.

Enter the Theatre of the Absurd, a dramatic genre born from post-WWII disillusionment, where dialogue breaks down, logic goes missing, and people sit in dustbins pondering the void. Think Samuel Beckett’s “Endgame”, where characters exist in a post-apocalyptic limbo, or Eugène Ionesco’s “Rhinocéros”, where people start turning into rhinoceroses and no one seems particularly bothered. It’s bureaucracy meets existential horror, with hooves.

Consider Franz Kafka’s book “The Metamorphosis”, in which Gregor Samsa wakes up one day as a giant bug. Not a metaphor. Just a bug. His family’s reaction? Mildly annoyed. The real tragedy isn’t his transformation, but how quickly people stop offering him coffee. It’s bleak, yes, but it’s also hilarious in that “oh god, this is my life” sort of way.

It thrives in this space between laughter and dread, clarity and chaos. It reassures us that yes, everything is weird, but you’re not alone in thinking so. Absurdism flirts with existentialism and nihilism like they’re emotionally unavailable students. Existentialism tells us to make our own meaning, nihilism tells us meaning doesn’t exist, and absurdism says, “Cool, now let’s write a play where no one says anything coherent for two hours and someone turns into a bug.”

That’s exactly where the play Lost Watches plants its feet, then immediately loses its balance. The new work by Lorenzo Allchurch, directed by Alex Helfrecht, premieres this summer at London’s Park Theatre. It tells the story of Allen, a grief-stricken young man hiding in a shed filled with sculpture dust, haunted memories, and, naturally, a talking statue of William Burroughs, voiced by none other than Jason Isaacs. It channels the core characteristics of absurdist, including the emphasis on existential isolation, and the dark humour that emerges from hopelessness, to create something urgently contemporary.

It’s a play about grief, but also family, memory, and the fine line between a breakdown and a breakthrough, with plenty of surreal humour along the way. Lost Watches shares DNA with absurdist classics, but it’s unapologetically modern, emotionally vulnerable, funny, and just odd enough to feel real.

Rather than offering easy comfort, the play suggests that absurdity itself might be a form of resistance, a way of finding meaning in meaninglessness. In a theatrical landscape often dominated by safe revivals, this production dares to be genuinely experimental while remaining deeply human.

For those seeking refuge from their own moments, Lost Watches offers something more valuable than escape. In an age of late capitalism, existential burnout, and the fact that your fridge now judges your diet, absurdism might just be the most honest worldview we have. From July 30th to August 23rd at Park 90, you can book your ticket on parktheatre.co.uk.

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.Cent magazine, London. Be Inspired; Get Involved