Interesting links

Please let me know, if you find any others!

"Life is great when you take it as a whole, when you look back on it, on that kind of space that time turns into when everything has receded into the distance. It all becomes a single unit, a kind of house or château that you can visit room by room."

(Abstract from "The Hermit", 1973)

Plays

"Die Nashörner". The short-story Rhinoceros translated into German by Hartmut Gatzke.
Extracts of La Leçon (The Lesson)
"Le feu" (Mary's scene) Extract of La Cantatrice Chauve (The Bald Soprano)
Last scene of Le Roi se meurt (Exit the King)
Herbert Reinecker: "Der Kommissar: Die ionescoescen Dialoge in: "Ende eines Tanzvergnügens"
Presentation of the performance of "Rhinocéros" on 6 May 1998 in a suburb to Lille (France)

Analyses and criticism

Short introduction to Ionesco's universe (in French)
The meaning of life in "Rhinoceros", by David Dunson (Translation into French).
Three criticisms on Rhinoceros (sept. 96 in Los Angeles)
Bald Jack, or Is It The Soprano Submission?: Ionesco's Personal Explorations of Language, Meaning, and Life Revolutionize Theatre, by Jane K. Dominik
"Zu Ionesco" - article (in German) on language and Ionesco, by Elfriede Jelinek
"Le Tragique chez Eugène Ionesco" University paper (mémoire de maîtrise) by Alain Bouhey, Université de Dijon, 1971
"L'essentialisme est un mysticisme" Thesis (in extenso and in French) by Søren Olsen. A comparison between the solitary main character in Jean-Paul Sartre's novel Nausea and the nausea that the main character og Eugène Ionesco's novel "The Hermit" suffers from. (187K)

Pictures

Photograph of Eugène Ionesco's grave at the Montparnasse cimetary in Paris
Watercolour painting by Ellyn Siegel: Her interpretation of Rhinoceros
Photos from Woodrow Bryant Hood's version of "Exit the King"
Study for the portrait of Eugène Ionesco by Mac' Avoy (1971)
Some cartoons of Ionesco
A "must" when talking about Ionesco is a visit to: Théâtre de la Huchette in Paris, where "The Bald Primadonna" and The Lesson" have been played without interruption since 1957! For this achievement a Molière d'honneur was awarded to Théâtre de la Huchette on 8 May 2000 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the first performance ever of the play. See the poster here:

Theatre in general

L'Officiel des spectacles - What's on in Paris right now?
La Mémoire du Théâtre (theatre sets)
Jacques Noël (sets for Ionesco's plays)

Miscellaneous

Malaspina Great Books; bibliography. A bibliographical goldmine, situated in Canada
Shay Goosens takes a psychological approach to Ionesco's life in this interesting web-site
Extract of "Entre la vie et le rêve" in Russian
Martin Bendig opened the first Ionesco site in German
Katharenas realm It is a delight for the eyes to visit this informative site on existentialism and on the theatre of the absurd
Literary Listserv Discussion Web-chat on Ionesco. Check the quality of the contributions yourself
Ionesco's speech at his accession to the French Academy 25 February 1971
Ionesco's Message for The World Theatre Day 27 March 1976
7 quotations (in English)
Moustache for Mona Lisa - At last a comprehensible explanation (in Swedish) of what pataphysics are all about!
Very complex home page (in German) on "Pataphysik, Symbolismus, Surrealismus" (on and around Alfred Jarry)
Robert Whyte has elaborated an impressing and complex site on Boris Vian
Hommage à Boris Vian Fine and abundantly illustrated presentation of Boris Vian's many areas of interest and activity. Apart from being friends, one thing Ionesco and Vian had in common was their interest in Pataphysics
Short introduction to the theatre of the absurd
Republique Internationale des lettres Guide of 650 literary sites in French
Buy a series of 24 posters - Beckett, Ionesco and Genet
Obituary in The New York Times
Obituary in the Culture section of the Romanian magazine Cotidianul
Obituary in the University journal of the University of Katowice, Poland