Word: beckett
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Producing "plays for voices" in a theatre is not necessarily a bad idea, as Dylan Thomas and Charles Laughton, alone and with supporting actors, have proved and proved again. Samuel Beckett's All That Fall, the most important work on the Poet's bill, is avowedly a radio play. David Campton's two curtain-raisers, A Smell of Burning and Memento Mori, also depend almost entirely upon dialogue and sound effects. The faults of the three lie not in their form but in their functioning: though competently made and well staged and acted, their impact is weak...
...turn Stravinsky over, shuffling my feet loudly as I went. When I got back, her eyes were glazed, but she had gamely propped herself up with her elbows. I decided to try to stick it out until the deadline. I mentioned Samuel Beckett. She quoted Samuel Beckett. Finally we went, but still it was awful. Copley Peale...
Furthermore, I am convinced that Beckett modeled his Didi largely on a specific person. Didi's name is the phonetic equivalent of "D.D.," i.e. "Doctor of Divinity." And early in the play Didi starts a discussion of the Gospels. He introduces quite a bit of philosophizing; he sings a ballad and a lullaby; and he has ministered to Gogo spiritually and materially for 50 years, and repeatedly makes medical allusions and diagnoses. Now what person fills the bill--theologian, philosopher, musician, physician, and compassionate servant of the less fortunate for half a century? Albert Schweitzer. If you think this...
...Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, to which the Shubert Theatre is currently playing host, is the most stimulating show to hit Boston in some years. The opening of the play in Paris four years ago engendered violent controversy, which has followed it all over Europe and to the United States. The heart of the controversy lay (and still lies) in the allegedly enigmatic meaning of the play. Consequently, producer Michael Myerberg, in conjunction with his production last spring in New York, staged a weekly symposium at which those interested could discuss the play among themselves and with the people...
...Oedipus Rex and Hamlet--and these both can be legitimately regarded in all sorts of ways, from a first-rate detective story on up. The same is true of Godot; familiarity yields ever-increasing insights. One sees that the four main roles represent humanity ("All mankind is us"). Beckett presents them, however, not as Romantic individualists, but as two pairs--each pair being, like the two sides of a coin, opposites but mutually inseparable (it corresponds to the dualistic concept of inyo that permeates so much of Oriental thinking). In one case: teacher and pupil, guardian and ward, rationalist...