SAMUEL BECKETT
One of the most unique and powerful voices of the Twentieth Century, Sameul
Beckett was born in Foxrock, Ireland, in 1906, and suffered, as he claimed,
an eventless childhood. He attended Trinity College in Dublin, and left
for Paris when he was twenty-two (he would later call this city home).
In Paris he fell in with a group of avant-garde artists, including James
Joyce, who was to become a life-long friend. Although he continued to write
in both English and French throughout his life, most of his major works
were written in French between 1946 and 1950. Beckett was awarded the Nobel
prize for literature in 1969. He died in Paris in 1989.
Beckett's bizarre world is explored in novels, short stories, poetry, and
scripts for radio, television, and film. But he is best known for his work
in the theatre. His most famous play, Waiting For Godot, opened
at a tiny theatre in Paris in 1953 and went on to become one of the most
important dramatic works in this century. The strange atmosphere of Godot,
in which two tramps wait on what appears to be a desolate road for a man
who never arrives, conditioned audiences to following works like Endgame,
Happy Days, and Krapp's Last Tape.
Beckett's drama is most closely associated with the Theatre of the Absurd.
He employs a minimalistic approach, stripping the stage of unnecessary
spectacle and characters. Tragedy and comedy collide in a bleak illustration
of the human condition and the absurdity of existence. In this way, each
work, from the lengthy productions (Godot, Endgame) to the very
brief (Ohio Impromptu, Catastrophe) to the despairing mologues (Rockaby,
A Piece of Monologue), serves as a metaphor for existence and an entertaining
philosophical discussion. Although Beckett dissociated himself from the
post World War II French existentialists, his works cover much of the same
ground and ask similar questions.
Waiting
for Godot
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