Characteristics of Modern English Drama Essay

Godots 60th The University of de nonation file shows the first night Pic Roger Pic So why atomic number 18 we still waiting for Godot? How has Samuel Becketts blowout grown from a tiny avant garde performance in Paris to become part of the westward End theatre coach party circuit? Its 60 years since Samuel Becketts influence delay 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, taking in the latest experimental theatre. All the thousands who claimed they were there could never have been at the premiere. There werent enough seats, says James K directlson, Becketts friend and decreed biographer. They to a fault couldnt have realised that this play, beginning its shoestring-budget run on 5 January 1953, was going to be seen as one of the pivotal moments in modern drama. International appealSo why has Waiting for Godot turn out so durable ? How has Becketts work outlasted the other iconoclasts and angry untested writers of the 1950s and 1960s? I would suggest the answer lies in its ambiguities. So much is suggested rather than explicitly stated, says professor Knowlson. A programme from Godots first setting at the Theatre de Babylone in Montparnasse, Paris population can read into it what they want to read into it.This openness to interpretation has helped the play to avoid becoming dated, he says. For a play thats to the highest degree 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 amidst unless in a way that isnt limited to a particular place or era. And the play has acquired a remarkable commemorate for being performed in very different international settings. No misfortune or civil strife is complete without its own Godot. It was performed in Sarajevo downstairs siege in the 1990s, in South Afri ca it was seen as a survey of apartheid and in the wake of Hurricane Katrina a performance in New siege of Orleans was seen as an emblem of the citys wait for recovery. Inmates in San Quentin prison house in California saw it as their own story in a famous production in the late 1950s. professor Knowlsons friendship with Beckett has also created a rich and unexpected 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 ass has grown to become the definitive European assemblage 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. Some thing 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. Instead it depended on the actor and director Roger Blin to hustle for cash and a venue and erstwhile it had begun it relied on word of mouth for survival. None of the original cast are still alive and the theatre itself shut down a a few(prenominal) years after staging Becketts play. In an interview with French television in the 1960s, Roger Blin suggested the initial power of the play.When Beckett showed him the script I express to myself This is something extraordinary and it must be put 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 dickens years later in London, directed by a 24-year-old dent Hall. Harold Pinter, also then in his twenties, saw Beckett as the the most courageous, unpitying writer going, while reviewer Bernard Levin described Waiting for Godot as a remarkable piece of twaddle.Not a miserabilistProf Knowlson is himself now one of the most definitive living connections with Beckett. pass on reading the main storyStart QuoteHe could be very convivial, very witty, very good company, with a great brain of surliness 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. But 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 discouragement that was part of his life, particularly after the war when he was deeply entangled in writing the novels. He says that Becketts idea of a talented Christmas 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 a great deal a peculiarly bleak comedy of resistance, but the thread of humour is always there to leaven the gloom. Its now a popular to see Waiting for Godot described as one of the most important plays of the 20th blow with its reputation gathering momentum rather than melt away. The kind of movie actors who would have reached the career point of wanting to be in King Lear now want to shuffle across the spot in Godot.Design consciousA key reason for this ontogenesis 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 t o a greater extent conscious of the filmic quality.A handbill advertising 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 mixed in painting, not just that he loved to be with painters, but he was a real expert on 17th Century Dutch painting. He knew these pictures so well, he was so engrossed in these scenes. It seems to me that these pictures are really 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 publishing company John Calder also recalled how the enigmatic Godot could haunt his creator.He recounted how he had formerly met an anxious Beckett getting off a flight at Heathrow airport. When the even doors had closed on the runway in Paris, Beckett had heard the loudspeaker announcing victor Godot welcomes you on board. I wond ered if my destiny had caught up with me at last, Beckett had told his publisher. The Beckett International Foundation at the University of Reading will hold a series of seminars on Samuel Beckett and Waiting for Godot in April 2013.