Characteristics of Modern English Drama Essay

Godots 60th The University of Reading archive shows the first-year night Pic Roger Pic So why be we still waiting for Godot? How has Samuel Becketts institute gr accept from a tiny avant garde performance in genus Paris to become part of the West End theatre coach party circuit? Its 60 years since Samuel Becketts play time lag for Godot received its premiere in the Theatre de Babylone in Paris. The first public performance, in its original French form of En attendant Godot, drew an audience of high-brow Parisians, fetching in the latest experimental theatre. All the thousands who claimed they were there could never set about been at the premiere. There werent enough seats, says James Knowlson, Becketts friend and official biographer. They also couldnt have realised that this play, set out its shoestring-budget run on 5 January 1953, was going to be seen as one of the pivotal moments in modern font drama. international appealSo why has Waiting for Godot proved so durable? How has Becketts stool outlasted the other iconoclasts and angry young sources of the 1950s and 1960s? I would suggest the answer lies in its ambiguities. So much is suggested sooner than explicitly stated, says Prof Knowlson. A programme from Godots first setting at the Theatre de Babylone in Montparnasse, Paris People can read into it what they want to read into it.This openness to interpreting has helped the play to avoid becoming dated, he says. For a play thats about the passing of time, its curiously timeless. It asks all the big philosophical questions about life and death and the uncertain purpose of what goes on in between but in a way that isnt limited to a token place or era. And the play has acquired a uncommon record for being performed in precise disparate international settings. No disaster or civil strife is complete without its own Godot. It was performed in Sarajevo infra siege in the 1990s, in South Africa it was seen as a critique of apartheid and in the wa ke of Hurricane Katrina a performance in New Orleans was seen as an emblem of the citys wait for recovery. Inmates in San Quentin prison in California saw it as their own story in a known production in the late 1950s.Prof Knowlsons friendship with Beckett has also created a rich and unthought-of legacy for his university, the University of Reading, which now holds the biggest archive of Beckett-related material in the world. From the early 1970s, the playwright began giving manuscripts and notes to Prof Knowlson, stuffed into bags, boxes and suitcases. And this Beckett International hind end has grown to become the definitive European collection for researchers. He adopted us, says Prof Knowlson although the attention-shunning writer was never persuaded to visit the archive in person. As Waiting for Godot reaches its 60th anniversary, the university has artefacts and pictures from the original performances. Something extraordinaryIts also a reminder of how easily the play might not have happened at all. Samuel Beckett at the BBC recording a series of his plays in 1977There were no famous faces or big funders to back the play. rather it depended on the actor and director Roger Blin to hustle for cash and a venue and once it had begun it relied on intelligence service of mouth for survival. None of the original cast are still alive and the theatre itself shut kill a few years after staging Becketts play. In an interview with French tv set in the 1960s, Roger Blin suggested the initial power of the play.When Beckett showed him the script I said to myself This is something extraordinary and it must be puke on. Another playwright who was enlisted in the search for funding fervently promised Blin I will defend this play to the death. It was still proving controversial when the first English version of the play was performed two years later in London, directed by a 24-year-old Peter Hall. Harold Pinter, also then in his twenties, saw Beckett as the the or so courageous, remorseless writer going, while reviewer Bernard Levin describe Waiting for Godot as a remarkable piece of twaddle.Not a miserabilistProf Knowlson is himself now one of the most important lively touchs with Beckett. Continue reading the main storyStart QuoteHe could be very convivial, very witty, very dandy company, with a great sense of humor Professor James KnowlsonBecketts friend and biographer. And he recognises that the continuing interest in Becketts writing is wrapped up in the fascination with the enigmatic character of the author. His photogenic alienation has become a kind of literary brand. barely Prof Knowlson argues against the view of Beckett as a miserabilist. He could be very convivial, very witty, very good company, with a great sense of humour. But there was an element of depression and despair that was part of his life, in particular after the war when he was deeply involved in writing the novels. He says that Becketts psyche of a happy Chri stmas would have been a solitary occasion.He would have been preferably on his own and writing. He hated that kind of thing. The underlying humour is also part of the continuing appeal of Waiting for Godot, he argues. Its often a peculiarly bleak comedy of resistance, but the thread of humour is always there to leaven the gloom. Its now a commonplace to see Waiting for Godot described as one of the most important plays of the 20th Century with its reputation gathering momentum rather than fading away. The kind of movie actors who would have reached the career point of wanting to be in fairy Lear now want to shuffle across the stage in Godot.Design consciousA tombstone reason for this gro net incomeg resonance with audiences, Prof Knowlson says, is the visual appeal. Becketts strong images appeal to a design-conscious, visually-literate culture. They have this strong visual element. Ive become much more conscious of the filmic quality.A handbill publicize the first run of Waiting for GodotProf Knowlson says that he increasingly believes there is a direct link between the plays and Becketts interest in painting. He was passionately involved in painting, not exactly that he loved to be with painters, but he was a real expert on seventeenth Century Dutch painting. He knew these pictures so well, he was so engrossed in these scenes. It seems to me that these pictures are truly echoed in Waiting for Godot. Becketts life was changed by the success of Godot the international impact of the play helped him to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. His publisher John Calder also recalled how the enigmatic Godot could haunt his creator.He recounted how he had once met an intent Beckett getting off a flight at Heathrow airport. When the plane doors had closed on the runway in Paris, Beckett had heard the loudspeaker announcing Captain Godot welcomes you on board. I wondered if my destiny had caught up with me at last, Beckett had told his publisher. The Beckett Intern ational Foundation at the University of Reading will hold a series of seminars on Samuel Beckett and Waiting for Godot in April 2013.