and other
Samuel Beckett Sites
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Papers on Beckett
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Damned to Fame, by James Knowlson (1996),
authorized by Beckett. Reviewed by J. D. O'Hara: "A magnificent
biography". A tiny excerpt.
"An Outsider in His Own Life". The Last Modernist by Anthony Cronin (1997).
Reviewed by Morris Dickstein. Read Chapter 1 here or here.
Endgame, reviewed by Brooks Atkinson (1958): Although
the dialogue is often baffling, there is no doubt about the total impression.
We are through, he says."
Happy Days, reviewed by Howard Taubman, 1961. "Mr.
Beckett's threnody is grim, but in its muted, tremulous way it shimmers with
beauty."
Happy Days in Boston, 1997. Reviewed by The Boston
Phoenix.
Book
Reviews
"Search for Peace in a World Lost" (Murphy)
"Funniest, perhaps, of his novels, but least poetic, 'Murphy' evokes a
ferocity of terror and humor that shames most well-made novels of our
time."
"Real Love Abides" (Malone Dies)
Reviewed by William Barrett. "Mr. Beckett himself writes
rather like a wounded bird, in short stabbing flights, never getting far into
the air before he falls back, but wonderfully moving in these tiny arcs."
"Lifelong Suffocation" (The Unnamable)
Reviewed by Stephen Spender.
"One Man's Universe" (Watt)
"Now that 'Watt' is available here, the first kind of admirers will make
it truly their own. The second kind will be exquisitely bored. The third kind
will naturally infer from their own inability to discover what on earth Mr.
Beckett is talking about, that this is indeed a significant novel. "
"While Waiting for Godot" (Mercier and Camier)
Reviewed by Deirdre Bair. "Despite its somberness, it is
in some ways a warm and funny book, occasionally tinged with stinging
sarcasm."
"Where Is the Where, Why Is Why" (How It Is)
Some
snippets.
"Dream of Fair to Middling Women" (1993)
"To non-Beckettians 'Dream' still offers the vicarious experience of being
overwhelmed but not silenced by art, ideas, literature, language, sex and
self."
Other Beckett related material in The Times
Obit. Dec. 27, 1989
Historical
relic: Hatchet job in the Times Book Review. One
Joseph Epstein ("Visiting professor, Northwestern Univ.") lambasts
Beckett and two books about him by scholars Hugh Kenner and A. Alvarez,
November 25, 1973. Not posted by the Times.
Game Without End Review by Fintan
O'Toole of two recent books:
The
Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett: Volume IV: The Shorter Plays, edited by Stanley Gontarski.
No
Author Better Served: The Correspondence of Samuel Beckett and Alan Schneider, edited by Maurice Harmon.
Book review: No Author Better Served: The Correspondence of Samuel
Beckett and Alan Schneider. Jim McCue in The New Statesman.
My friend, Samuel Beckett by Israel
Horovitz,1989.
Beckett remembered: 'Oh, all to end' by Robert
Taylor,1989.
Shedding light on a dark and droll Irish master
by Mark Harman, 1996, on the Knowlson bio.
Beckett's brightness on dark days by Askold
Melnyczuk, 1996, on The Complete Short Prose. "Reads like a
psalter, an anthology of prayers for relief from the burden of being".
Samuel Beckett : Beyond Biography by Stephen
Mitchelmore
From Ireland: The word become spirit. Gerry Dukes in the
IRISH TIMES
Cogito ergo Sam. One final review of
Knowlson's Damned to Fame, by Steven Drukman in American Theatre
magazine.
Spotlight on Samuel Beckett by Martin Esslin.
His Life/Works/Philosophy/Humour and Technical Mastery.
De "France
3 en ligne": une biographie
Short, bleak
biography. Daniel Lindley in BIBLIO.
Final biography.
Extensive biographical notes, drawn from Damned to
Fame. A Fringeware
Subculture page.
Three
Encounters with Beckett, a page by Tina Hsu, Univ. of Pennsylvania
Herbert
Mitgang, Beckett in Paris, 1981
Kenneth
S. Brecher, Samuel Beckett: Private in Public, 1988
John
Montague, A Few Drinks and a Hymn: My Farewell to Samuel Beckett, 1994
Sam's happy days, The Guardian, London. John Calder recalls his friend, Samuel
Beckett, as a man of compassion, courage and humour.
An
Appreciation of Samuel Beckett. A rather perceptive piece in a rather
small newspaper. Rick Lopez in the Erie (Pennsylvania) Times-News.
Beckett and Brecht: Keeping the Endgame at a
Distance by Jodi Hatzenbeller. A comparative analysis of Brechtian
theatre and the themes of Endgame.
Three chapters
from The Plays of Samuel Beckett by Eugene Webb.
Chapter
2: Waiting for Godot
Chapter
4: Endgame
Chapter
7: Act Without Words I and II.
“There is no escape from the hours and the days.”: ‘The
goings-on’ of Samuel Beckett. An essay by David Parfitt, The King's
School, Gloucester, England.
Samuel
Beckett's Postmodern Fictions by Brian Finney, California State
Univ., Long Beach.
Editing Beckett, by Stanley Gontarski in Twentieth
Century Literature, 1995. An analysis of the inept editing and numerous
publication blunders to which Samuel Beckett's work has been subjected.
Revising
Himself: Performance as Text in Samuel Beckett's Theatre. How
Beckett transformed himself into a producer/director/theatre artist. By Stanley
Gontarski in the Journal of Modern Literature.
From
Beckett to Stoppard: Existentialism, Death, and Absurdity by Ryan
Petty.
Beckett,
openness and experimental cinema by Michael Schell.
The Silence That Is Not Silence: Acoustic Art In Samuel
Beckett's Embers, by Marjorie Perloff.
PhD thesis: Samuel Beckett's Radio Plays: Music of the Absurd
by Stefan-Brook Grant, Department of British and American Studies, University
of Oslo.
Introduction
Chapter 1: Background
Chapter 2: All That Fall
Chapter 3: Embers
Chapter 4: Words and Music and Cascando
Play Analysis. The True-Real Woman: Maddy Rooney as Picara in All
That Fall, by Sarah Bryant-Bertail, University of Washington,
Seattle.
Beckett Bethicketted: James Joyce's influences
on Beckett. By Stephen Dilks, Univ. of North Dakota.
Eavesdrop on the London
Beckett Seminar where the participants had fun trying to dope out
the literary references as they collectively read
How
It Is
The Lost Ones
Embers
and Worstward Ho.
Essay on A Piece of
Monologue by Hwa Soon Kim, Univ. of Inchon, Korea.
Read A Piece of Monologue.
Samuel
Beckett: The Complete Short Prose, 1929-1989 Edited by Stanley
Gontarski. Review by Paul West in The Bookery Bookpress.
Waiting for Eleutheria
An essay on Film by Samuel Beckett by Katherine Waugh
& Fergus Daly, Ireland. "The greatest Irish film" Gilles Deleuze
A
review, of sorts, in Life Magazine, Aug. 14, 1964. A couple of nice
stills of Buster.
Brownlow on Beckett (on Keaton). Filmmaker
Kevin Brownlow talks with Sam about Buster.
An analysis and
discussion of That Time by Aaron Appel.
That Time:
A spotlit face is seen listening to its own voice emanating via loudspeaker
from different points in the auditorium. The face itself never speaks, and its
stage directions consist solely of blinking, breathing audibly and, at the very
end, smiling.
Beckett's
Fiction in Different Words by Leslie Hill. Reviewed by Alan Astro:
"A lively study of incomprehensibilty".
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989). A tribute from
Leslie Hill.
Beckett, un écrivain devant Dieu par Jean
Onimus.
The Absurdity of Samuel Beckett by Eva
Navratilova, Center for Comparitive Cultural Studies, Palacky Univ., Olomouc,
Czech Republic.
The Pornographic Imagination in All Strange Away
by Graham Fraser, Univ. of Reading, England.
Acting
"at the nerve ends": Beckett, Blau, and the Necessary by
Phillip Zarrilli, Univ. of Wisconsin.
Pseud's Corner: Academicspeak
Cryptic
Productions Samuel Beckett Festival website.
Four Happy Critics:
Between Contiguous Extremes: Beckett and Brunonian
Minimalism Michael Guest
Beckett and Foucault: Some Affinities Michael
Guest
Act of Creation in Beckett's Catastrophe
Michael Guest
Steven
Conner Slow Going
Reflections on Samuel Beckett: The Subjective Imperative
of Voice Robert Lukehart
Russell Smith Beckett, Negativity and Cultural Value
Related Sites
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La isla de la poesía. Algunas consideraciones sobre
literatura irlandesa. Por Viviana O´Connell
Other Sites and Pages on Beckett
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Samuel Beckett in
the Nobel Prize Internet Archive
Award presentation speech by Karl Ragnar
Gierow of the Swedish Academy
Ever see a Nobel Prize diploma? Impressive.
Beckett Wins Nobel for Literature N. Y. Times,
Oct. 24, 1969. Registration required.
Sam
won six Village Voice Off-Broadway Theatre Awards
("Obies") but he probably never attended the award ceremonies in New
York and he definately didn't appear at any of the pre-ceremony cocktail parties.
Evergreen Review Feature on Beckett
A
Page for Godot Addicts (in Japanese)
Katerie Prior's The Samuel Beckett Homepage
Samuel
Beckett at Christopher Ritter's Bohemian Ink
Samuel
Beckett's Post-Modern Fictions by Brian
Finney
The
Dutch Samuel Beckett Foundation
The Samuel Beckett On-Line Resources and Links Page
Apple's
Samuel Beckett ad unsavoury at core by Vit Wagner in The Toronto
Star.
New book: Samuel Beckett and the Arts: Music, Visual Arts, and
Non-Print Media, edited by Lois Oppenheim. A "comprehensive
presentation of Samuel Beckett's use of the musical and visual arts."
Twenty essays and analyses, some by well-known Beckettians. Hardcover, 416
pages (according to Barnes & Noble -- Amazon says 300), $75. Read one essay.
Brief
book descriptions
Directing Beckett by Lois Oppenheim
The World of Samuel Beckett by Lois Gordon
Book review: Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde by
Charles Juliet. Reviewed by Mark Finch in contemporary visual arts, Britain, who refers
to these conversations as "interviews".
Two samples of
Sam's somewhat illegible handwriting deciphered and translated by Prof.
Hans Hiebel, Graz, Austria. http://samuel-beckett.net/handwriting.html
Waiting for Beckett, award winning television
documentary from Global Village, reviewed by Tane Lee Alves in the East Hampton
(NY) Independent. Read additional comments by the producer/director,
or buy the video.
"Now
What I Wonder Do I Mean By That? (Interpreting Beckett)" by
Louis Menand.
Theater
criticism from Slate.
A brief but
interesting bibliography by Johnny Eck
A comprehensive bibliography of books in English
and German.
How one person
researched, produced and directed a performance of Endgame. Seven phases, 46
very short pages which could stand a bit of proofreading. A master's thesis by Leon
Ingulsrud.
The Old Tune from the Tübingen, Germany
Anglo-Irish Theatre Group
Company on stage at Williams College, by
Lawrence Graver
Interactive
Beckett (real, not virtual), from no less than The
Royal Shakespeare Company.
Journal
of Beckett Studies, the New Series, from the English
Department at Florida State Univ.
Índice y extractos de los artículos en Beckettiana, una publicación anual del
departamento de la filosofía y de las cartas en la universidad de Buenos Aires.
En español e inglés.
Beckett Interviews
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The
Hapless Dilettante News The Samuel Beckett Interviews 
On-line Texts
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Some posted without explicit
permission.
Short
works (First two are three pages. Click on
"Next" to turn the page.)
To both
read and listen to it, first click here, then here.
·
Dieppe,
Cascando. Two poems.
·
Neither
·
Company
(excerpts)
·
The
last sentence of The Unnamable, parsed and punctuated by Colin
Greenlaw.
·
what
would I do without this world (poem)
·
Ooftish
·
Breath
("Inspiration" =
Inhalation, "Expiration" = Exhalation)
Londoners gasp at Beckett's 35-second play by
Paul Keller, Reuters.
·
Endgame
·
Waiting
for Godot
Act 2
Annotated versions
Losigkeit (Lessness)
Sechs
Gedichte (Six Poems)
Krepp utolsó szalagja (Krapp's Last Tape)
Español
El Expulsado
El Final
Esperando a Godot
Molloy
Malone Muere
Korean
Waiting for Godot
On-Line Bookstores
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Amazon.com
Books about Beckett. 359 and counting.
Barnes and Noble
Foxrock Books
Stirrings Still. Special numbered printing of
226, signed by Beckett. $2000.
Internet
Bookshoppe, Britain, a division of W. H. Smith ("At the frontiers of
technology and customer service").
Books by Enter "Samuel
Beckett" in "Author", click on Search Now.
Books
about Enter "Samuel Beckett" in "Title",
click on Search Now.
Videos
|
films.com Films for the Humanities & Sciences
Prices include public perfomance rights. Substantially less if
purchased for private viewing.
Three Plays: Eh Joe, Footfalls and Rockaby.
"Special studio recordings" featuring Billie Whitelaw. 80 minutes,
black and white. $149.
Silence
to Silence Portrait of Beckett's artistic life, seen through
his works. Selected scenes from plays, acted by his well known interpreters. 80
minutes, color. $149.
As
the Story Was Told BBC profile of Beckett from his childhood
to old age. "A rare glimpse into the reclusive world of this literary
giant." 2 parts, 55 minutes each, colour. $259.
online
classics
View the Three Plays, Rockaby, Eh Joe
and Footfalls. Available for a limited time without charge, in streamed Windows
Media format. Select low speed or high speed, or high resolution 300 Kbps
(broadband) in which fine, full-screen performances can be experienced.
From facets
video, a non-profit media arts organization.
Krapp's Last Tape starring Jack MacGowran,
about whom Beckett once said, "I didn't have to talk to him; I didn't have
to direct him. He just knew." A 1971 recording. $59.95.
» Coming Soon « The Beckett Film Project. A
new filming of all 19 plays, starring Jeremy Irons, Julianne Moore, Barry McGovern,
Harold Pinter, John Gielgud (in his last acting appearance)
and others. The entire program of films will be shown on Britain's Channel 4
and on RTE in Ireland (the co-producers), and will "ultimately" be
released in a boxed video set.
Listen to Michael Colgan, director of this
project, discuss it with Michael Enright on the CBC's This Morning.
(RealAudio 17 min.)
Beckett goes to Hollywood by Tillmann Allmer
in The Guardian, London. An excellent summation of the entire project that
follows an unfortunate headline, given the fact that none of these plays will
be filmed in Hollywood. Indeed, one (Happy Days) was shot outdoors on a volcano
in the Canary Islands.
Review by Liam Lacey in the Toronto Globe and
Mail.
The Reel Beckett. If Samuel Beckett were alive
today, what would he make of the 19 films of his plays, about to be released as
the Beckett on Film project? Fintan O'Toole hazards a guess.
D Coming All Too Soon :•(
The Beckett Story,
hopefully in glorious black and white, narrow screen and 15 minutes (or less)
in length. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis as Samuel Beckett, fresh from his
forthcoming triumph in Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York" in which
he stars in the sensitive role of Bill "The Butcher" Poole. Watch for
it at your local Cineplex 14. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wonder who the
hell concocted the idea to even attempt it.
Videoflicks.com
Waiting for Godot (View a sample, below)
Krapp's Last Tape
Download
and view a 42 second Quicktime movie of a scene from Waiting for
Godot (San Quentin Drama Workshop), 3.775 megabytes, in colour.
(Webmaster's comment: "Excellent".)
Sketch by Tom Phillips of Beckett directing
the San Quentin group in a rehearsal of Godot.
Global Village videos
Waiting
for Beckett
Peephole
Art: Beckett for Television
Not I
Quad I & II
What Where
FOX
ROCK Books
Film 
and 
Waiting for
Godot (the version with Zero Mostel and Burgess Meredith, 1976)
British
Universities Film and Video Council
(Available in PAL or NTSC format).
Eh, Joe! Beckett's first play written
specifically for television. Original 1972 taping. 25 minutes.
What?...Who?...No!...She! Renowned Beckett
scholar and biographer James Knowlson discusses with Billie Whitelaw the
background to her performances of several of his works. 34 minutes.
Thirty-nine today Max Wall, the actor
and former music-hall comedian, discusses with James Knowlson his experiences
acting Krapp. 21 minutes.
Audio
|
Samuel
Beckett Radio Plays
Produced by Voices International and distributed by Evergreen
Review
Words and Music. Music by Morton Feldman.
Words and Music. A 1987 collaboration between
Beckett and composer Morton Feldman. Performed by the Ensemble Recherche on
Montaigne/Auvidis Records.
The
Note Man and the Word Man. An interview with Morton Feldman about
composing the music for Samuel Beckett's radio play, Words and Music.
Interviewer: Everett C. Frost.
From Ubu Web.
Listen
to two radio plays.
Words
and Music. Not the Morton Feldman version. The music in this 1979
performance by the Theater for Your Mother was composed by Mark E.
Miller. Available in streamed Real Audio (16 kbps) or MP3 (80 kbps).
To both listen to and read it,
first click here, then here.
Cascando.
Performed by the Theater for Your Mother in a 1979 recording. Real Audio
or MP3.
Billie Whitelaw,
actress, lecturer and author, describes "the pleasure (mostly) and pain
(only a little)" of working with Beckett. Hear it in Real Audio (10 min.). Registration required.
Michael Colgan,
director of the Gate Theatre of Dublin, talks Beckett with Michael Enright on
the CBC's This Morning. Hear it in Real Audio, 7 min, 40 sec.
Alleged Beckett sounds Acoustic and synthesized
(including a 30 sec. sample)
Beckett
Festivals
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Beckett Festival and Symposium, The Hague,
1992
The Beckett Festival, Lincoln Center, 1996
Richard Corliss's report on it in Time magazine.
Kunsthalle, Treitlstraße 2, Vienna, Austria, February 4 -
April 30, 2000.
Multimedia Exhibition: Samuel Beckett/Bruce Nauman
Mini-Festival, Chicago, June, 2000.
Buckets O'Beckett -- Four Short Plays by Samuel Beckett
QUAD / PLAY / ACT WITHOUT WORDS 2 / KRAPP'S LAST TAPE 
Cryptic Productions Samuel Beckett Festival
Glasgow, Scotland, Oct. 13-22, 2000. A ten day Scottish-led international event
that will take an innovative and radical approach to Beckett in presenting a
programme of theatre, dance, film and educational events, and a new
contemporary chamber opera
Beckett Fest 2001, presented by the Manitoba
Theatre Centre, Winnipeg, Canada, from the 11th to the 27th of January. More
than 100 performances of Beckett works including the staging 
of all the major plays and dramaticules, broadcasts on local FM
of radio plays, puppet theatre and late night post-performance watering and
Beckett banter at the King's Head pub that includes Friday open mike. Who says
Winnipeg's a cold place in winter?
Theatre, Brighton, England. Four dramas - Rockaby, A Piece of Monologue,
Ohio Impromptu and Catastrophe. Performances from Tuesday, 22 May to Saturday,
2 June, 2001 at 8pm.
The After Beckett Music Festival, December,
2001, Berlin & Amsterdam
Back to the index
Academic year 2000/2001
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
©Zulheika Botella Berenguer
Universitat de València Press
