“A middle-class English interior, with English armchairs. An English evening. Mr. Smith, an Englishman, seated in his English armchair and reading an English newspaper, near an English fire. He is wearing English spectacles and a small gray English mustache. Beside him, in another English armchair, Mrs. Smith, an Englishwoman, is darning some English socks. A long moment of English silence. The English clock strikes 17 English strokes.”

These opening stage directions use repetition of the word “English” to establish the play’s farcical English setting and parody of bourgeois culture. The improbable 17 strokes of the clock immediately signal the absurd logic of this world and the disintegrating sense of time in the play. While the play begins with a simple picture of a cozy evening shared by a very English married couple, things will soon quickly descend into nonsensical absurdity.

“There, it’s nine o’clock. We’ve drunk the soup, and eaten the fish and chips, and the English salad. The children have drunk English water. We’ve eaten well this evening. That’s because we live in the suburbs of London and because our name is Smith.”

This opening line of the play, spoken by Mrs. Smith, continues the parody of the hyper-English setting and sense of English cultural identity. It also introduces the stylized language taken from Ionesco’s English language primer. Here, Mrs. Smith recounts simple facts to her husband, such as their name and where they live, that Mr. Smith should already know. While reminiscent of the way language textbooks introduce conversation, it also speaks to larger themes of the struggle to communicate beyond a surface-level, even with loved ones.