Ionesco instigated a revolution in ideas and techniques of drama, beginning with his "anti play", The Bald Soprano which contributed to the beginnings of what is known as the Theatre of the Absurd, which includes a number of plays that, following the ideas of the philosopher Albert Camus, explore concepts of absurdism and surrealism.

Many sources cite his birthdate as 1912, this error being due to vanity on the part of Ionesco himself, who wanted the year of his birth to coincide with that of when his idol, Romanian playwright Caragiale, died.

When he "floated" back to the ground and the "light" left him, he saw that the real world in comparison was full of decay, corruption and meaningless repetitive action.

Two early writings of note are Nu, a book criticizing many other writers, including prominent Romanian poets, and Hugoliade, or, The grotesque and tragic life of Victor Hugo a satirical biography mocking Victor Hugo's status as a great figure in French literature.

The Hugoliade includes exaggerated retellings of the most scandalous episodes in Hugo's life and contains prototypes for many of Ionesco's later themes: the ridiculous authoritarian character, the false worship of language.

Ionesco began his theatre career later in life; he did not write his first play until 1948 (La Cantatrice chauve, first performed in 1950 with the English title The Bald Soprano).

Re-reading them, he began to feel that he was not learning English, rather he was discovering some astonishing truths such as the fact that there are seven days in a week, that the ceiling is up and the floor is down; things which he already knew, but which suddenly struck him as being as stupefying as they were indisputably true.

Ionesco set about translating this experience into a play, La Cantatrice Chauve, which was performed for the first time in 1950 under the direction of Nicolas Bataille.

These absurdist sketches, to which he gave such descriptions as "anti-play" (anti-pièce in French) express modern feelings of alienation and the impossibility and futility of communication with surreal comic force, parodying the conformism of the bourgeoisie and conventional theatrical forms.

In them Ionesco rejects a conventional story-line as their basis, instead taking their dramatic structure from accelerating rhythms and/or cyclical repetitions.

He disregards psychology and coherent dialogue, thereby depicting a dehumanized world with mechanical, puppet-like characters who speak in non-sequiturs.

Language becomes rarefied, with words and material objects gaining a life of their own, increasingly overwhelming the characters and creating a sense of menace.

With Tueur sans gages translated as The Killer (1959; his second full-length play, the first being Amédée, ou Comment s'en débarrasser in 1954), Ionesco began to explore more sustained dramatic situations featuring more humanized characters.

Notably this includes Bérenger, a central character in a number of Ionesco's plays, the last of which is Le Piéton de l'air translated as A Stroll in the Air.

It is in this play that Ionesco most forcefully expresses his horror of ideological conformism, inspired by the rise of the fascist Iron Guard in Romania in the 1930s.

Apart from the libretto for the opera Maximilien Kolbe (music by Dominique Probst) which has been performed in five countries, produced for television and recorded for release on CD, Ionesco did not write for the stage after Voyage chez les morts in 1981.

Ionesco wrote mainly in attempts to correct critics whom he felt misunderstood his work and therefore wrongly influenced his audience.