UNCW’s theater department is starting off its season a little weird. Two absurdist plays, “The Bald Soprano” and “The Room,” debuted this weekend.

“The Bald Soprano,” written by Eugene Ionesco, is about the Smiths, a couple from London, and the strange events and conversations that occur in their home. Ionesco was one of the founding fathers of the absurdist genre. In an interview for Encore Magazine, Anne Berkeley, associate professor of theatre and director of “The Bald Soprano,” said that there is no logic in the sequence of events in the play.

“The characters are vivid and unique; they have thoughts, feelings, and attitudes because these are intrinsic to the human condition. But they’re all absurd,” said Berkeley.

Senior theater major Owen Hickle-Edwards plays Mr. Smith, one of the play’s leads. He describes his character as the most illogical, even though his character acts as if he is very logically minded.

“Sometimes I think of these characters as bomb shelter victims and anything that creeps into our bomb shelter causes us to freak out,” said Hickle-Edwards.

Harold Pinter’s “The Room” also magnifies the weirdness in the human condition. Directed by theater instructor Charles Grimes, “The Room” is about a woman who has a stable life that is then ripped apart.

The absurdist styles of these plays are a little different than what the theater department tends to produce. As a theater major, Hickle-Edwards said that the students are trained in realism.

“[The Bald Soprano] is not realism,” said Hickle-Edwards.

Grimes said that “The Bald Soprano” and “The Room” were chosen to do because the department wanted to expose the audience to a different style of theater.

 Hickle-Edwards believed that there will be two types of reactions to both of the plays.

“Fifty percent of the audience will try to be intellectual about it, while the other half will just laugh,” he said.

The plays are not only different because of their style, but also because they will be performed on another kind of stage that the theater department typically does not use. Both “The Bald Soprano” and “The Room” will be performed on a stage called an alley. This means that the audience will be on two sides of the stage instead of just sitting in front of the stage. The set will be the same for both of the plays, but the furniture will change.

“You’d be surprised how the same set can look like two different worlds,” said Hickle-Edwards.

“The Bald Soprano” and “The Room” both premiered Sept. 22 in the SRO Theater of UNCW’s Cultural Arts building, with performances running through the weekend. There will also be performances through Sept. 29 to Oct. 2. Tickets are five dollars for UNCW students, 10 dollars for faculty and staff, senior citizens, and alumni, and 12 dollars for the general public. Tickets are available for purchase at the Kenan Hall Auditorium Box Office and also at the Cultural Arts Building Box Office one hour prior to the show.