A game without an end
INTRODUCTION: Ireland recently celebrated the centennial of Samuel Beckett who specialised in minimalist writing, preferring to pare it down as much as he could. Puja Goyal
Source: Vijay Times, Life - Pg 3.
Copyright © 2006 Puja Goyal.
"It's ahl wrahng! He's doing it ahl wrahng!" Samuel Beckett screamed when he saw his play Waiting for Godot being rehearsed in London (1955) for the first time. Those words still ring amongst people who attempt to perform Beckett's play. Beckett always insisted that his plays be performed as written, and shirked every time as extra equipment was added on stage or modifications were made to his idea of performance. Today, no other dead dramatist remains such a haunting instructor presence for his directors and performers as Beckett.
When Beckett wrote, he specified not just the words, but the rhythms and tones, the sets and the lighting plots. As a playwright, Beckett preferred to keep his work indeterminate and did not involve the participation of actors, directors, and designers in determining the meaning of the work. With these plays, creative intervention seems like inane interference.
Samuel Barclay Beckett (April 13, 1906 - December 22, 1989) an Irish playwright, novelist and poet was known for his stark, fundamentally minimalist works, which were deeply pessimistic about the human condition and were coupled by a wicked sense of humour. He was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969 and elected Saoi of Aosd·na in 1984. He was also a sportsman who excelled at cricket as a left hand batsman and left arm medium pace bowler. Later on, he played for Dublin University and played two first-class games against Northamptonshire. He is the only Nobel laureate to have an entry in Wisden.
Waiting for Godot (originally En Attendant Godot), his most famous play, involves two vagrants who are waiting by a bleak roadside for someone who never arrives. Endgame is a play where even though the characters talk of leaving, never leave. Many early critics were inclined to agree with words from Waiting for Godot, "Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful." It is only one of a series of startling and unnerving images. In Happy Days, the central character is buried up to her waist, and then her neck, in sand; in Endgame characters are trapped in ash cans and a wheel chair.
Beckett often wrote in French and translated his own work. His language and imagery began lean and grew even more minimalist as he aged. By the time he wrote the 1972 play, Not I, the sole character had been reduced to a mouth onstage, surrounded by darkness. ìI didnít invent this buzzing confusion. "It's all around us," Beckett once said. Mary Bryden, a Cardiff University academic and president of the Samuel Beckett Society, said Beckett's motto was "pare it down, pare it down."
"He used to say that to people who sent him their work. It's only when you've faced your own nothingness that youíve got something valid to say," she recalled.
In the last 10 years of his life, this minimalist style resulted in three of Beckett's most important prose works, the three novellas Company (1979), Ill Seen Ill Said (1982) and Worstward Ho (1984). His last work, the poem What is the Word (1989), was written in bed in the nursing home where he spent the last years of his life, suffering from emphysema and possibly Parkinson's disease.
Beckett's gravestone is a massive slab of polished black granite. At the foot of his grave stands one lone tree, a reminder of the stage set for his most famous play. Beckett's work is still performed frequently around the world, under the intensely - some say overly - protective gaze of the estate managed by his nephew, Edward Beckett. Several directors' plans have been overturned by the family's desire to be loyal to Beckettís vision. Beckett is one of the most photographed authors in history. The best known pictures of Beckett were taken by Irish photographer John Minihan, who photographed him through 1980-1985. Some consider one of these to be among the top three photographs of the 20th century.
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Source: Vijay Times, Life - Pg 3.
Copyright © 2006 Puja Goyal.
"It's ahl wrahng! He's doing it ahl wrahng!" Samuel Beckett screamed when he saw his play Waiting for Godot being rehearsed in London (1955) for the first time. Those words still ring amongst people who attempt to perform Beckett's play. Beckett always insisted that his plays be performed as written, and shirked every time as extra equipment was added on stage or modifications were made to his idea of performance. Today, no other dead dramatist remains such a haunting instructor presence for his directors and performers as Beckett.
When Beckett wrote, he specified not just the words, but the rhythms and tones, the sets and the lighting plots. As a playwright, Beckett preferred to keep his work indeterminate and did not involve the participation of actors, directors, and designers in determining the meaning of the work. With these plays, creative intervention seems like inane interference.
Samuel Barclay Beckett (April 13, 1906 - December 22, 1989) an Irish playwright, novelist and poet was known for his stark, fundamentally minimalist works, which were deeply pessimistic about the human condition and were coupled by a wicked sense of humour. He was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969 and elected Saoi of Aosd·na in 1984. He was also a sportsman who excelled at cricket as a left hand batsman and left arm medium pace bowler. Later on, he played for Dublin University and played two first-class games against Northamptonshire. He is the only Nobel laureate to have an entry in Wisden.Waiting for Godot (originally En Attendant Godot), his most famous play, involves two vagrants who are waiting by a bleak roadside for someone who never arrives. Endgame is a play where even though the characters talk of leaving, never leave. Many early critics were inclined to agree with words from Waiting for Godot, "Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful." It is only one of a series of startling and unnerving images. In Happy Days, the central character is buried up to her waist, and then her neck, in sand; in Endgame characters are trapped in ash cans and a wheel chair.
Beckett often wrote in French and translated his own work. His language and imagery began lean and grew even more minimalist as he aged. By the time he wrote the 1972 play, Not I, the sole character had been reduced to a mouth onstage, surrounded by darkness. ìI didnít invent this buzzing confusion. "It's all around us," Beckett once said. Mary Bryden, a Cardiff University academic and president of the Samuel Beckett Society, said Beckett's motto was "pare it down, pare it down."
"He used to say that to people who sent him their work. It's only when you've faced your own nothingness that youíve got something valid to say," she recalled.
In the last 10 years of his life, this minimalist style resulted in three of Beckett's most important prose works, the three novellas Company (1979), Ill Seen Ill Said (1982) and Worstward Ho (1984). His last work, the poem What is the Word (1989), was written in bed in the nursing home where he spent the last years of his life, suffering from emphysema and possibly Parkinson's disease.
Beckett's gravestone is a massive slab of polished black granite. At the foot of his grave stands one lone tree, a reminder of the stage set for his most famous play. Beckett's work is still performed frequently around the world, under the intensely - some say overly - protective gaze of the estate managed by his nephew, Edward Beckett. Several directors' plans have been overturned by the family's desire to be loyal to Beckettís vision. Beckett is one of the most photographed authors in history. The best known pictures of Beckett were taken by Irish photographer John Minihan, who photographed him through 1980-1985. Some consider one of these to be among the top three photographs of the 20th century.
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