Beckett in performance / Jonathan Kalb.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kalb, Jonathan.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Beckett, Samuel, 1906-1989.

Local Subjects:

Beckett, Samuel, 1906-1989.

Physical Description:

ix, 277 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 23 cm

Manufacture:

(1991 [printing])

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Summary:

This book takes a critical look at the work of one of the twentieth century's most influential playwrights from the viewpoint of those whose job it is to give the work life on the stage. From personal experience of over seventy productions, from interviews with numerous Beckett actors and directors, and in rare conversations with the playwright himself, Kalb addresses such fundamental questions as: Is the task of performing Beckett categorically different from that of performing other forms of theater? Is the audience's role different, and if so, how? The result is a new insight into particular problems of producing Beckett's early and late works, television plays, and prose works adapted for the stage.

The book contains numerous performance photographs and an appendix of interviews with actors and directors involved in seminal Beckett productions. Beckett in performance will be of interest to students and scholars of twentieth-century theater and literature and to actors, directors, and playgoers.

Contents:

Part 1 Acting 7

2 Rockaby and the art of inadvertent interpretation 9

3 Considerations of acting in the early plays 24

4 Considerations of acting in the late plays 48

Part 2 Directing 69

5 Underground staging in perspective 71

6 Eh Joe, Dis Joe, He Joe: toward a television icon 95

7 The gamble of staging prose fiction 117

8 Conclusion: the question of context 144

Beckett and the actor 145

Beckett and the director 149

Terminological digression 154

Less is more - Beckett and the avant-garde 157

Part 3 Conversations 163

JoAnne Akalaitis 165

Walter Asmus 173

Alvin Epstein 185

Klaus Herm 197

Frederick Neumann 206

Ekkehard Schall 212

David Warrilow 220

Billie Whitelaw 234.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0521423791

9780521423793

OCLC:

24794322