Samuel Beckett and the theatre of the absurd

Samuel Beckett 1906-1989

Born in Dublin • one of the last modernist writers • 1969 Nobel Prize • elected Saoi (wise one) of Aosdána (people of the arts) in 1984 • met Joyce while teaching at École Normale Supérieure in Paris and assisted in research for Finnegans Wake (similarities with Joyce—the gnomen) • 1937 settles in Paris “I prefer France at war to Ireland at peace” • 1940 joined French Resistance as a courier, awarded Croix de Guerre, Médaille de la Résistance

•. In 1945, Beckett returned to Dublin for a brief visit • In 1945, Beckett returned to Dublin for a brief visit. During his stay, he had a revelation in his mother’s room: "I realized that Joyce had gone as far as one could in the direction of knowing more, [being] in control of one’s material. He was always adding to it; you only have to look at his proofs to see that. I realized that my own way was in impoverishment, in lack of knowledge and in taking away, in subtracting rather than in adding.”

Pereszlényi Gyula Márton/Martin Esslin In his book, Theatre of the Absurd, written in 1962, he defined the "Theatre of the Absurd" as follows: “ The Theatre of the Absurd strives to express its sense of the senselessness of the human condition and the inadequacy of the rational approach by the open abandonment of rational devices and discursive thought.”

In his 1965 book, Absurd Drama, Esslin wrote: "The Theatre of the Absurd attacks the comfortable certainties of religious or political orthodoxy. It aims to shock art its audience out of complacency, to bring it face to face with the harsh facts of the human situation as these writers see it. But the challenge behind this message is anything but one of despair. It is a challenge to accept the human condition as it is, in all its mystery and absurdity, and to bear it with dignity, nobly, responsibly; precisely because there are no easy solutions to the mysteries of existence, because ultimately man is alone in a meaningless world. The shedding of easy solutions, of comforting illusions, may be painful, but it leaves behind it a sense of freedom and relief. And that is why, in the last resort, the Theatre of the Absurd does not provoke tears of despair but the laughter of liberation."

“Mr. Beckett is a poet; and the business of a poet is not to clarify, but to suggest, to imply, to employ words with auras of association, with a reaching out towards a vision, a probing down into an emotion, beyond the compass of explicit definition.” Harold Hobson, in the preface to faber & faber edition, xiv

“Waiting for Godot” had created a revolution in theatre, forcing leading critics like Kenneth Tynan to ‘re-examine the rules which have hitherto governed the drama; and, having done so, to pronounce them not elastic enough.” Preface by Rónán McDonald Originally written in French Fin de Partie, premiere in April 1957 in London “There is no drama whatsoever in Fin de Partie…there is a heap of words but no drama.” Beckett told Roger Blin, the original director

“On 21 June 1956, Beckett wrote to his American director and friend, Alan Schneider, ‘Have at last written another, one act, longish, hour and a half, I fancy. Rather difficult and elliptical, mostly depending on the power of the text to claw, more inhuman than Godot.’ This ‘inhuman’ quality derives from the terrible strictness of Endgame, spatial and temporal. The physical disabilities and mutilations of the characters mean that they cannot move freely, but the ‘something’ that is taking its course suggests they are also trapped in a deterministic or mechanical system.” viii

“The idea that Endgame has some message or moral that can be readily distilled from the dramatic action is one that is explicitly denied by the play…later critics, notably the German philosopher Theodor Adorno, lauded in Beckett precisely this recalcitrance, whose challenge to orthodox values and their grammar of understanding seemed appropriate to the crisis of culture and confidence after the Second World War. If civilization could lead to such barbarism, it seemed necessary to overhaul and renovate it, including its artistic and literary heritage…rather than simply asserting an absence of meaning, the play strives to demonstrate and embody this absence.” Preface xiv

Main characters: Hamm, an old, blind and peevish master Clov, his embittered servant Nagg, Hamm’s elderly and maimed father, living in a garbage bin Nell, Hamm’s elderly and maimed mother, living in a garbage bin

Moments of meaning in a meaningless play: „What do you see on your wall?” „Am I right in the centre?” „One day you’ll be blind like me.” „Yesterday! What does that mean? Yesterday!” „What is there to keep me here?” „The dialogue.” „Use your head, can’t you, use your head, you’re on earth, there’s no cure for that!” „Gone from me you’d be dead.” „There’s one thing I’ll neever understand. Why I always obey you. Can you explain that to me?” „No…perhaps it’s compassion. A kind of great compassion. Oh you won’t find it easy, you won’t find it easy.” „It’s we are obliged to each other.”