The Chairs is an absurdist play by Romanian-French playwright Eugène Ionesco, first performed in 1952. It details the life of an unnamed, elderly married couple as they attempt to organize a speech and look back on their life together.
The play begins with the couple reminiscing about the past, as the man recounts a trip to a garden in Paris. The woman fawns over him in a motherly way, saying he could have served in a higher role than his current one: general factotum. They sit in an empty room in a tower encircled by water. The man eventually says that he will be delivering an important message later that evening and that he has invited many important individuals from the local municipality to come listen. Invisible attendees begin to trickle in as the man and his wife scramble to accommodate them. Among them is a former love interest of the man, as well as an artist to whom the woman is attracted. As more and more people arrive, the man seems to grow panicked. This reaches a climax when the Emperor, also unseen by the audience, arrives and the man pledges his devotion and says that the message will be his life's work. An orator arrives and prepares to give remarks, signing some autographs at the dais from which he will speak. The couple leap out of a window to their deaths. The man begins to speak and only nonsensical noises come out, revealing him to be a deaf-mute. He writes on the chalkboard near him and then, to a chorus of muttering, coughing, and laughing, departs the stage.
Written in 1951, the play was first performed in Paris on April 22nd, 1952 at the Théâtre Lancry. It was directed by Sylvain Dhomme and starred Paul Chevalier and Tsilla Chelton as the old man and woman, respectively. The initial run worked under such tight budgetary constraints that Ionesco sought out chairs from local restaurants on the day of the first show. The play has subsequently been revived many times, most notably at the Royal Court Theater in 1957, the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2004, and the Almeida Theater in 2022. The play is often considered a landmark work in the Theater of the Absurd canon.
