from The Stage
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2013
“For me theater is first of all a relaxation from work on fiction. We are dealing with a definite space and with people in this space. That's relaxing.”
“Directing too?”
Beckett laughs: “No, not very. It's exhausting.”
Beckett's involvement with theater has increased with the years. The main product of that affair is twenty-one extant plays, excluding the several abandoned fragments. The byproduct of that affair is intense attention to performance of those scripts, beginning with the lost Kid. Written in French in 1931, while Beckett was a graduate student at Trinity College, Dublin, the play is a parody of Corneille's Le Cid, mocking the unity of time. Twenty-four-year-old Beckett played Don Diègue, the aged father of the Kid, in period costume but a bowler hat. The play had only two performances and did not inspire Beckett to continue with theater. Five years later, asked by a friend to help her with a play, Beckett “began to hang around on the fringes of various dramatic groups in Dublin.” Other than the aborted Human Wishes, however, he was still not inspired to continue with theater. Ten years later, in 1947, Eleuthéria bears witness to his familiarity with problem plays, simultaneous sets, Pirandellian quips.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.