Boston Globe

Theater in bloom

''Happy Days": Gloucester Stage Company marks Samuel Beckett's 100th birthday -- and artistic director Israel Horovitz's final season -- with a true gift to audiences: Scott Edmiston directing Nancy E. Carroll as Winnie, the quintessential Beckett character, bleakly hopeful and buried up to her neck. In a season that also features tributes to Horovitz from such luminaries as Jill Clayburgh and Peter Boyle, this is a standout. Gloucester Stage Company, Gloucester, July 6-16. 978-281-4433, http://www.gloucesterstage.com/.

''Hamlet": Artistic director Tina Packer keeps it all in the family for what is, amazingly, Shakespeare & Company's first production ever of this jewel in Shakespeare's crown. Packer plays Gertrude to her real-life son Jason Asprey's Hamlet, while her husband, Dennis Krausnick, plays Polonius. No doubt they're wise to have a nonrelative, Eleanor Holdridge, direct. Shakespeare & Company, Lenox, July 1-August 27. 413-637-1199, http://www.shakespeare.org/.

''Johnny Got His Gun": Among the offerings in a diverse and adventurous season at Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater is one that seems particularly pointed in the current political climate: a stage version of Dalton Trumbo's antiwar classic ''Johnny Got His Gun." If it's anywhere near as powerful as Trumbo's 1939 novel, this adaptation by Bradley Rand Smith (directed by Neal Huff) promises to enrage, enlighten, and provoke. Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, Wellfleet, June 25-July 11. 508-349-9428, 866-282-9428, http://www.what.org/.

''Copenhagen": Michael Frayn's Tony Award-winning speculation on a mysterious conversation between German physicist Werner Heisenberg and his Danish mentor, Niels Bohr, takes the uncertainty principle far beyond physics. It also takes the Publick Theatre further along on its mission to expand its ''theater of the spoken word" beyond the Shakespeare productions that were, until last season's hit ''Arcadia," the outdoor stage's stock in trade. Publick Theatre, Brighton, July 20-Sept. 10. 617-782-5425, http://www.publicktheatre.com/.

''Double Double": The Williamstown Theatre Festival closes its main-stage season with the US premiere of a whodunit directed and co-written by Roger Rees, the festival's artistic director. Written with Rick Elice, ''Double Double" is billed as full of romance and intrigue and sounds lively, clever, and entertaining. But who knows? Williamstown Theatre Festival, Williamstown, Aug. 16-27. 413-597-3400, http://www.wtfestival.org/.

''Monsieur Chopin": Hershey Felder returns to the American Repertory Theatre with the second work in his one-man trilogy about composers, which began with the popular ''George Gershwin Alone" and is to conclude with ''Beethoven." American Repertory Theatre, Cambridge, June 15-July 30. 617-547-8300, http://www.amrep.org/.

LOUISE KENNEDY

The other side of the mountain

«Settling down in Paris, Beckett became a familiar figure at Left Bank cafes, continuing his alliance with Joyce while also becoming friend with artists like Marcel Duchamp (with whom he played chess) and Alberto Giacometti. At this time he became involved with Peggy Guggenheim, who nicknamed him Oblomov after the title character in the Ivan Goncharov novel, a man who Miss Guggenheim said was so overcome by apathy that he ''finally did not even have the willpower to get out of bed.''»

Fizzle 3

Afar a bird

«Ruinstrewn land, he has trodden it all night long, I gave up, hugging the hedges, between road and ditch, on the scant grass, little slow steps, no sound, stopping ever and again, every ten steps say, little wary steps, to catch his breath, then listen, ruinstrewn land, I gave up before birth, it is not possible other-wise, but birth there had to be, it was he, I was inside, now he stops again, for the hundredth time that night say, that gives the distance one, it's the last, hunched over his stick, I'm inside, it was he who wailed, he who saw the light, I didn't wail, I didn't see the light, one on top of the other the hands weigh on the stick, the head weighs on the hands, he has caugh this breath, he can listen now, the trunk horizontal, the legs asprawl, sagging at the knees, same old coat, the stiffened tails stickup behind, day dawns, he has only to raise his eyes, open his eyes, raise his eyes, he merges in the hedge, afar a bird, a moment past he grasps and is fled, it was he had a life, I didn't have a life, a life not worth having, because of me, it's impossible I should have a mind and I have one, someone divines me, divines us, that's what he's come to, come to in the end, I see him in my mind, there divining us, hands and head a little heap, the hours pass, he is still, he seeks a voice for me, it's impossible I should have a voice and I have none, he'll find one for me, ill beseeming me, it will meet the need, his need, but no more of him, that image, the little heap of hands and head, the trunk horizontal, the jutting elbows, the eyes closed and the face rigid listening, the eyes hidden and the whole face hidden, that image and no more, never changing, ruinstrewn land, night recedes, he is fled, I'm inside, he'll do himself to death, because of me, I'll live it with him, I'll live his death, the end of his life and then his death, step by step, in the present, how he'll go about it, it's impossible I should know, I'll know, step by step, it's he will die, I won't die, there will be nothing of him left but bones, I'll be inside, nothing but a little grit, I'll be inside, it is not possible otherwise, ruinstrewn land, he is fled through the hedge, no more stopping now, he will never say I, because of me, he won't speak to anyone, no one will speak to him, he won't speak to himself, there is nothing left in his head, I'll feed it all it needs, all it needs to end, to say I no more, to open its mouth no more, confusion of memory and lament, of loved ones and impossible youth, clutching the stick in the middle he stumbles bowed over the fields, a life of my own I tried, in vain, never any but his, worth nothing, because of me, he said it wasn't one, it was, still is, the same, I'm still inside, the same, I'll put faces in his head, names, places, churn them all up together, all he needs to end, phantoms to flee, last phantoms to flee and to pursue, he'll confuse his mother with whores, his father with a roadman named Balfe, I'll feed him an old curdog, a mangy old curdog, that he may love again, lose again, ruinstrewn land, little panic steps.»
from "Fizzles" [Translated by the author / Grove Press, Inc. N.Y. 1976, pp. 25-27]

Global Village presents

THE BECKETT PROJECT - A Portrait of Samuel Beckett

Produced and directed by John Reilly and Melissa Shaw-Smith

• Waiting for Beckett
  Winner of The National Educational Film and Video Festival Golden Apple Award
  Winner of the Silver Hugo Award at INTERCOM '94, a part of the Chicago Film
  
• Peephole Art: Beckett for Television
  Not I
  Quad I & II
  What Where

«Waiting for Beckett is the first American documentary on Samuel Beckett. This 86 minute program profiles the life of this extraordinary man who shunned publicity throughout his life and yet became a worldwide cultural influence. His plays and novels have been studied and performed on every continent and translated into more than twenty languages. In the United States alone his most famous play, Waiting for Godot, has sold over one and a half million copies and has captivated some of the best minds of our time.
This documentary, which was undertaken with the blessing and guidance of Samuel Beckett himself, took over five years to make and features many unique elements: excerpts from outstanding performances, historical footage and first-time interviews. Mary Manning, the only known surviving family friend who grew up with Beckett, recounts personal anecdotes recalling their childhood in Ireland. Interviews with the villagers of Roussillon in the south of France recall the important but hitherto unknown period in Beckett's life when, as a member of the French Resistance, he was forced to remain there in hiding. Excerpts from Beckett's private correspondence provide an astonishing and often humorous insight into his personal opinions of his life and art.
Beckett, who died in 1989 at the age of 83, is shown in the documentary turning a videotaped stage performance of his last play, "What Where", into a highly stylized video production. He comments at length as he works.
Waiting for Beckett also features actors Steve Martin and Bill Irwin performing and discussing their personal response to Beckett's work, rare archival footage of Burgess Meredith and Zero Mostel in the first television production of Waiting for Godot and famous performances by Jack McGowran, Patrick Magee and Billie Whitelaw.

Peephole Art: Beckett for Television is the only existing program which contains three full-length performances of Samuel Beckett's work written or adapted especially for the small screen. He himself called the medium "peephole art" because, as he said, "It allows the viewer to see what was never meant to be seen."
The works featured in the program contain rare or never-before seen performances. Each is introduced by Irish actor Chris O'Neill, who is renowned for his fine performances of Beckett's work.
Not I (1989) is a powerful, experimental piece in which the image of a large mouth fills the screen, spewing forth a haunting monologue which tells the tale of a woman who has been speechless most of her life.
Quad I & II (1988) was described by author Raymond Federman as "poetry, dance, mathematics, geometry -- it is the purest piece of work that Beckett has ever done." Beckett himself called it "a ballet for four people" and designed it so that the camera views the dancers from above. View 64 seconds of a Quad I performance here (Requires broadband).
What Where (1988) was written by Beckett in 1983 and it was to be his last published play. He originally conceived it for the theatre and spent four years revising it for television, culminating in this, the first American production.»

...
ORDERING INFORMATION
The Global Village Beckett Project Package consists of the two DVDs complemented by a study guide, written by Beckett scholars, that provides detailed background information on the life and works of Samuel Beckett.
- "Waiting for Beckett" (86 min.)
- "Peephole Art: Beckett for Television" (36 min.)

Detailed Study Guide PRICE: The entire package costs $99.95 including shipping and handling. Both DVDs are also for sale individually for $49.99 each, including shipping and handling.
Orders may be placed by phone, fax or in writing. Checks, money orders and travelers checks are acceptable. Sorry, credit cards are currently not being accepted. Checks should be made out to Global Village. Overseas shipping and special bulk order rates are available. Please call or write for details.

Orders and information requests to:
Melissa Shaw-Smith
69 Walling Road
Warwick, NY 10990
USA
email: mshawsmith@optonline.net
Telephone/FAX: (845)258-1095

A manuscript

"How it is" written in 1961

Isn't there anyone on the air?

Beckett at 100

«Today is the day we have been waiting for, even though it is better not to wait, because always what you get is less than what you hoped. 100 years since Samuel Beckett's birth. (Yes yes, they shall all now scream, "Birth was the death of him.")

"I once knew a madman who thought the end of the world had come. He was a painter--and engraver. I had a great fondness for him. I used to go and see him, in the asylum. I'd take him by the hand and drag him to the window. Look! There! All that rising corn! And there! Look! The sails of the herring fleet! All that loveliness!

(Pause.)

He'd snatch away his hand and go back into his corner. Appalled. All he had seen was ashes." (Endgame)

The thing is, Beckett makes me laugh. That's why I've stuck with him. Yes, there's bleakness and dreariness and the-world-is-awful and all that, but before there is that there is laughter. A sad laughter, yes, but that just makes it more meaningful and complex.

Before the laughter, there is language. That's what caused my first crush. It was "Happy Days", and yes they were -- high school, my head blown off. It took me forever to read the play. People were allowed to write like this? ("Embedded up to her waist in exact center of mound, WINNIE.") I couldn't make head or tail or kneecap of it. I wanted to know more. Who gave insane people pens to write with? Who published them? From the library, I took a copy of Waiting for Godot. I don't remember making much of it, but I do remember reading it entranced. Something in the rhythms.

"ESTRAGON:
Let's hang ourselves immediately!
VLADIMIR:
From a bough?
(They go towards the tree.)
I wouldn't trust it.
ESTRAGON:
We can always try.
VLADIMIR:
Go ahead.
ESTRAGON:
After you.
VLADIMIR:
No no, you first.
ESTRAGON:
Why me?
VLADIMIR:
You're lighter than I am.
ESTRAGON:
Just so!
VLADIMIR:
I don't understand.
ESTRAGON:
Use your intelligence, can't you?
(Vladimir uses his intelligence.)
VLADIMIR: (finally).
I remain in the dark."

I couldn't stop. I read all the plays. They fit in one book and feel like a shelf. I haven't stopped reading. Now I have a case.

Eventually, I discovered the prose. Where? How? I don't remember. It took me a while. I still haven't finished Watt, fun as it is. With the prose, I tend to like it shorter -- the sublime How It Is and Texts for Nothing are particular favorites.

"Intent on these horizons I do not feel myfatiguee it is manifest none the less passage more laborious from one side to the other one semi-side prolongation of intermediate procumbency multiplication of mute imprecations

sudden quasi-certitude that another inch and I fall headlong into a ravine or dash myself against a wall though nothing I know only too well to be hoped for in that quarter this tears me from my reverie I've arrived"
(How It Is)

Closest to my heart, though, is Endgame, perhaps because I once directed it (with high school students! Yes, I'm insane! But it turned out well, despite the odds.) and so I have lived with that text most closely. I find myself using phrases from it suddenly in everyday moments ("We'd need a proper wheel-chair. With big wheels. Bicycle wheels!"). It's an interesting enough play to read, but it's when you're in the midst of a production of it that the wonder of Beckett becomes most apparent, because the words become, somehow, living things -- not so much fragments shored against the ruins, but the magnificence of the ruins themselves, the words adorning the death of everything, an apotheosis in words, the last things left, the only things we can still apprehend after the speaker or writer is gone.

"I open the door of the cell and go. I am so bowed I only see my feet, if I open my eyes, and between my legs a little trail of black dust. I say to myself that the earth is extinguished, though I never saw it lit."
(Endgame)»

Published in The Mumpsimus - 13 April 2006