The Samuel Beckett On-Line Resources
and Links Pages

  The farther he goes the more good it does me. I don’t want philosophies, tracts, dogmas, creeds, ways out, truths, answers, nothing from the bargain basement. He is the most courageous, remorseless writer going and the more he grinds my nose in the shit the more I am grateful to him.
  He’s not f---ing me about, he’s not leading me up any garden path, he’s not slipping me a wink, he’s not flogging me a remedy or a path or a revelation or a basinful of breadcrumbs, he’s not selling me anything I don’t want to buy — he doesn’t give a bollock whether I buy or not — he hasn’t got his hand over his heart. Well, I’ll buy his goods, hook, line and sinker, because he leaves no stone unturned and no maggot lonely. He brings forth a body of beauty.
   His work is beautiful.
-- Harold Pinter
   Samuel Beckett is sui generis...He has given a voice to the decrepit and maimed and inarticulate, men and women at the end of their tether, past pose or pretense, past claim of meaningful existence. He seems to say that only there and then, as metabolism lowers, amid God’s paucity, not his plenty, can the core of the human condition be approached... Yet his musical cadences, his wrought and precise sentences, cannot help but stave off the void...Like salamanders we survive in his fire.
-- Richard Ellman

From the

Literary Encyclopedia:

A brief introduction to the life and works of Samuel Beckett.

Index

[ Papers on Beckett ] [ Other Sites and Pages ] [ Wikipedia / Beckett Interviews ]
[ On-line Texts ] [ On-line Bookstores ] [ Film and Video ]
[ Audio ] [ Beckett Festivals and Events ]
[ 2006 Centennial Festivities ]
[ The End ]

Papers on Beckett

[ Index ]

- Biographies
  "Savage Loving". Damned to Fame by James Knowlson (1996), authorized by Beckett. Reviewed by J. D. O'Hara: "A magnificent biography". A tiny excerpt.
  - Listen to Knowlson's recollections of Samuel Beckett and the writing of Damned to Fame. (Links are below at in the Audio section.)
  "An Outsider in His Own Life". The Last Modernist by Anthony Cronin (1997). Reviewed by Morris Dickstein. Read Chapter 1 here or here.
- Plays
  Waiting for Godot, reviewed by Brooks Atkinson (1956): "Don't expect this column to explain Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot.' It is a mystery wrapped in an enigma."
  Endgame, reviewed by Brooks Atkinson (1958): "Don't expect this column to give a coherent account of what--if anything--happens. Almost nothing happens."
  Happy Days, reviewed by Howard Taubman, 1961.
  Happy Days in Boston, 1997. Reviewed by The Boston Phoenix.
  - Happy Days Glossary and Literary Allusions
- Book Reviews
  "Search for Peace in a World Lost" (Murphy)
  "Real Love Abides" (Malone Dies) Reviewed by William Barrett.
  "Lifelong Suffocation" (The Unnamable) Reviewed by Stephen Spender.
  "One Man's Universe" (Watt)
  "While Waiting for Godot" (Mercier and Camier) Reviewed by Deirdre Bair.
  "Where Is the Where, Why Is Why" (How It Is) Some snippets.
- 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.
Jan. 20, 2000: 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.
Nov. 14, 1996: The Painful Comedy of Samuel Beckett. Three biographies:
- Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett by James Knowlson
- Samuel Beckett: The Last Modernist by Anthony Cronin
- The World of Samuel Beckett, 1906-1946 by Lois Gordon.
Reviewed by John Banville, with an additional brief analysis of some of Beckett's works. Quite a bit of biographical information gleaned from the three books.
Journal of Beckett Studies, from the English Department at Florida State Univ.
Essays by scholars and critics who are "at ease with the entire Beckett canon as well as
with the tradition in literature and philosophy that has helped make it possible."
- The complete original series. Entire contents of:
    Number 1, Winter, 1976. Contributors include James Knowlson, Ruby Cohn, Stanley Gontarski and Martin Esslin.
    Number 2, Summer, 1977.
    Number 3, Summer, 1978.
    Number 4, Spring, 1979.
    Number 5, Autumn, 1979.
    Number 6, Autumn, 1980.
    Number 7, Spring, 1982.
    Number 8, Autumn, 1982.
    Number 9, Spring, 1983.
    Number 10, Autumn, 1983.
    Double issue Number 11/12, Dec., 1989. For this issue, Adobe Acrobat required to read .pdf files.
  - Brief summaries of most of the articles in this issue.
- Review from the Summer `95 issue of Contemporary Literature of The Beckett Studies Reader, a book containing 13 essays from the Journal of Beckett Studies
- Journal of Beckett Studies, the new series. Tables of contents and covers. Only.
Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd'hui, an annual bilingual review published by Rodopi, The Netherlands, an independent publisher of international academic series on the humanities. It consists of scholarly papers by many well known and lesser known Beckettians. Their contributions "meet equally the tests of sound scholarship coupled with a high degree of readability, at the same time avoiding academic fustiness and learned obfuscation."
Book review: No Author Better Served: The Correspondence of Samuel Beckett and Alan Schneider. Jim McCue in The New Statesman.

From the review: “‘[Beckett writing]: I prefer these letters not to be republished, and quite frankly, dear Alan, I do not want any of my letters to anyone to be published anywhere, either in the petit pendant or the long apres.’ No author better served? This whole book is a betrayal of a wish that could scarcely have been more clearly stated.”
- A longer, more insightful and balanced review by Robert Brustein in the New York Times.
- 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".
Four 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
- Israel Horovitz, My friend, Samuel Beckett, 1989
- John Montague, A Few Drinks and a Hymn: My Farewell to Samuel Beckett, 1994
1996: Two more reviews of the Knowlson and Cronin biographies
- From Ireland: The word become spirit. Gerry Dukes in the Irish Times.
- Samuel Beckett : Beyond Biography by Stephen Mitchelmore in on-line magazine: "Picking the brains of popular culture"
  - 2006: Review by Stephen Mitchelmore of How It Was: A Memoir of Samuel Beckett by Anne Atik.
One final review of Knowlson's Damned to Fame, by William Hutchings in World Literature Today.
From Samuel Beckett in Guide to the Nobel Prizes, by Martin Esslin. His Life / Works / Philosophy / Humour and Technical Mastery.
Short, bleak biography. Daniel Lindley in BIBLIO.
Final biography. Extensive biographical notes, drawn from Damned to Fame. A Fringeware Subculture page.
Why Samuel Beckett joined the (French) Resistance. A page on the heart of things website of Jonathon Delacour.

[ Index ]
Sam's happy days. John Calder recalls his friend, Samuel Beckett, as a man of compassion, courage and humour. The Guardian, Aug. 29, 1999.
- Interview. Calder talks about Sam's last days. 2000.
- The Importance of Samuel Beckett by John Calder, 2004.
- Samuel Beckett: A Personal Memoir. John Calder, Sam's publisher for over thirty years, recounts their dynamic friendship. 2006.
Laughter in the dark by Edna O'Brien in The Guardian, March 11, 2006.
An Appreciation of Samuel Beckett. A rather perceptive piece in a rather small newspaper. Rick Lopez in the Erie (Pennsylvania) Times-News.

With his fiction, Beckett straps us into the front seat of a roller-coaster mind with fifty-mile hills, explosive drops, impossible curves, and tracks that splinter and scream with the constant threat of disaster. All this exhilaration, and beautiful prose to boot. -- Rick Lopez
From Raymond Federman, Sam's associate, mentor and friend.
- The Imagery of Samuel Beckett, a wide ranging lecture delivered in 2000. Here Prof. Federman reveals the key to "understanding" Beckett: Don't even try. Instead... use your senses and your imagination to appreciate the imagery of Sam's text paintings. Prof. Federman divulges, too, the secret of who Godot is. A lengthy and fascinating paper.
- Samuel Beckett: The Gift of Words, a tribute to Sam just after his passing. (In English and French.)
- Poem: Notes for Sam
Exorcising Beckett. A personal memoir by Lawrence Shainberg in the Fall 1987 issue of , to some a legendary literary quarterly. Critiqued by Booklist, the review journal of the American Library Association, as "a superb memoir".
"In Love With Hiding": Samuel Beckett's War by Marjorie Perloff in The Iowa Review, Spring, 2005.
After World War II, literary critics in France, for whom war memories were not only painful but also embarrassing given the collaboration of the Vichy government with the Nazis, preferred to read Beckett as addressing "man's alienation" and the "human condition" rather than anything as specific as everyday life in the years of the Resistance. For Beckett, those years leading up to his most productive period had been an elaborate war nightmare — for instance here's where he had to live for six months — a nightmare Beckett never wrote about directly although allusions to it are everywhere in his texts of the postwar decade. The word "war" itself appears nowhere in Godot or in those strange lyrical fictions of 1945-1946 which were published in The Expelled, The Calmant and The End and, in 1955, in Stories and Texts for Nothing. But the very absence of the word has an odd way of insuring its prominence in these stories.
A decidedly illuminating paper.
- The Silence That Is Not Silence: Acoustic Art In Samuel Beckett's Embers, by Marjorie Perloff.
Beckett 101: “There is no escape from the hours and the days”: The ‘goings-on’ of Samuel Beckett by David Parfitt, The King's School, Gloucester, UK.
Mr. Parfitt selects a few of Samuel Beckett's basic concerns, viz., failure; inadequacy; misfortune; illness; pain and/or suffering; isolation; impotence; disillusionment; unrelenting time and, of course, death, and then he goes on to explain various ways that Sam “transmutes the destitution of modern man into his exaltation” (Nobel Prize citation) by, e.g., never quite despairing but always ‘going on’ against insurmountable odds; living life ‘here and now’ and ignoring the unknown ‘beyond’; continuing the (futile) search for hope; turning any bothersome ‘inner fire’ into a burning passion in order to avoid being consumed by it and, of course, “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
A neatly packaged introduction to Beckett.
Abandoning Rational Explanations, by Jason Waltman, Wittenberg Univ.
An inquiry into the human condition as defined by the realities of:
- Mortality
- Contingency
- Discontentment
What, if anything, is the meaning of life? What defines "the self"? What truly is the definition of human existence? Here are three 20th century authors' conceptions, as expressed in:

- A Retrievable Essence. Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust. The self is, at bottom, an essence comprised of layers of hidden memories reflecting past experiences.

- Nothing Matters. The Stranger by Albert Camus. The meaning of life is determined by the event happening at present.

- They Do Not Move. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. Human experience is continually waiting for the solution to the problem to present itself.
The Absurdity of Samuel Beckett by Eva Navratilova, Center for Comparitive Cultural Studies, Palacky Univ., Olomouc, Czech Rep.
The Theatre of the Absurd
- Introduction to Absurd Drama by Martin Esslin, Penguin Books, 1965.
- Chapter 1 (partial), Samuel Beckett: The search for the self in Theatre of the Absurd by Martin Esslin, Doubleday & Co., 1961.
- THE ABSURD......AND BECKETT..a brief encounter by Serge Tampalini, Murdoch Univ., Perth, Western Australia.
- Theatre of the Absurd: The West and the East by Jan Culík, School of Modern Languages and Cultures, Univ. of Glasgow. A brief analysis of post-World War II European theatre on both sides of the ideological divide.
Wham, bam! Thank you, Sam!
EVERYTHING YOU'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT WAITING FOR GODOT BUT...
by Penelope Merritt, Community Center for the Performing Arts, Eugene, Oregon.
Perhaps Penelope feels that the "ungagging" of Beckett and Waiting for Godot is long overdue. In any case, she has posted, utilizing her own analysis and notes drawn from the books of dozens of Beckett scholars, an awesome, almost line-by-line explanation and interpretation of Godot. Included is the entire text of the play (Acts 1 and 2) with reciprocal links to the notes. In addition, most all of her pages are enhanced by some lovely and historical images -- and a few gory ones of the crucifixion.
From her introduction: "The following links point to notes that I prepared for a January 2000 college production of Godot in the Pacific Northwest. They were primarily intended for student actors, but I attempted to include information that would be of interest to those who found the play interesting as a purely academic pursuit, whether as a scholar of French or English Literature, the history of Theatre or even the cultural resonances of Existentialist philosophy..."
Traffic of our stage: Why Waiting for Godot? by Normand Berlin in The Massachusetts Review. A lengthy and insightful essay delving into many aspects of the Godot phenomenon.
Waiting for Godot and Endgame: Theatre as Text by Michael Worton. This is a chapter from the book, "The Cambridge Companion to Beckett" (An invaluable addition to Beckett criticism ... an outstanding book, faultlessly edited and superbly presented... —Independent on Sunday). Prof. Worton presents here an extensive and erudite analysis of Beckett's plays and of how the ideas of the many writers that he has drawn upon are both interwoven into his texts or are often dismissed by him.
- The Cambridge Companion to Beckett
~~ Approaching 'Waiting for Godot' ~~ by Stacy Tartar Esch, West Chester University of Pennsylvania. An interesting asymptotic approach because: "All action in Waiting for Godot is mere distraction; it doesn't lead anywhere other than to the central awareness with which it began, though by the play's end we see it all the more distinctly: Nothing to be done."
Martin Esslin covers a lot of Godot ground in Waiting for Godot -- Western and Korean
Essay on Waiting for Godot by Michael Sinclair
Essay on Waiting for Godot by Jak Peake, Hewett School, Norwich, England.
Beckett's Godot: "A bundle of broken mirrors" by Robert D. Lane
"Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down: Ropes, Belts and Cords in Waiting for Godot" by Roger Schonfeld, Yale Univ.
Samuel Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, but perhaps he should have also received one in another category: physics. In fact, some would contend that he broke more ground in the field of time and space in the real world (human) sense than any physicist squinting into a microscope or astronomer peering into the heavens. Here are three papers which might present some evidence in support of such an outrageous conclusion.
- The Concept of Time and Space in Beckett's Dramas Happy Days and Waiting for Godot by Dong-Ho Sohn, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, Korea.
- Space, Time, and the Self in Beckett's Late Theatre by David Pattie, University College Chester, Cheshire County, England.
- The Meaning of Time as Depicted in Waiting for Godot by Jeffrey Philip Bigham, Princeton Univ.
A Thought (or two) by Jim Nastos, Univ. of Alberta, on Lucky's "thought" after being commanded by Pozzo to "Think, pig!" A nice analysis written by a first year university English class student who found some of Beckett's writings to be a "cryptographic challenge".
The parallels between Christ and Lucky in Waiting for Godot. By Greg Tigani, Yale Univ.
The Second Coming and Mr. Godot by Jeffrey Miller. A paper written for a Contemporary Drama class.
Book review of Godot by "Michael JR Jose", a Top (six star) Scholar (219 reviews) at Allreaders.com, who alleges that the "plot for Godot" [sic] is taken from Macbeth, and that "Shakespeare says in thirty-eight words what Beckett takes a whole play to say." The 38 words? Obviously:
A simplistic notion by Michael JR? He might just be right.
Teaching an Anti-Christian Text from a Christian Perspective: The Case of S. Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" by Gatsinzi Basaninyenzi, Solusi College, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.
Beckett and Brecht: Keeping the Endgame at a Distance by Jodi Hatzenbeller. A comparative analysis of Brechtian theatre and the themes of Endgame.
So many people have requested a copy of this unpublished article that I have decided to make it generally available via the web. That's the actual title of this web page, and the article itself is called Beckett, Duchamp and Chess in the 1930s by Andrew Hugill, De Montfort University, Leicester, England. In Section 2 he posits some fascinating and plausible connections between Endgame and the real chess, although some of them are a bit of a stretch.
But Not In the Eye: Beckett’s comedy, by Fintan O'Toole.
Three chapters from The Plays of Samuel Beckett by Eugene Webb.
Reading Beckett's Fiction by R.M. Berry in Context, A Forum for Literary Arts and Culture, Number 1, 1999.
[ Index ]
Knowing me, knowing you. Novelist Keith Ridgway re-discovers Beckett's seminal work, Mercier and Camier, and is thrilled — despite other scholars' and crritics' negative judgments — by its early indications of Sam's epiphany, at age forty:
From the Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco): The Beckett Trilogy by Karen Mills.
The Narrative Paradox: The virus of nothingness in Samuel Beckett's Watt by György Dragomán, School of English and American Studies, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest.

After a prefacing caveat from Hugh Kenner that "the [literary] analyst whose stock-in trade is his skill at putting his author's matter before his reader in pithier or less redundant language will find no purchase [with Watt]", Prof. Dragomán nonetheless makes a valiant effort to do just that, with a modicum of success.
Samuel Beckett's Postmodern Fictions by Brian Finney, California State Univ., Long Beach.
Lucky's Bones: A Sense of Starvation in Watt, Waiting for Godot and Oliver Twist, by John Robert Keller in PSYART: A Hyperlink Journal for Psychological Study of the Arts. A shrink psychoanalyzes Watt, Didi, Gogo, Oliver and others.
Ping... in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Earth edition). Yes, indeed, the Beeb now hosts a real Guide, naming it h2g2 and dividing its sections, as you might expect, into Life, The Universe and Everything. Here is a piece about Sam's challenging poem Ping, the first Beckett posting entered under Life / Books & Literature / Authors and Playwrights, written by this category's Content Producer, "Jimster". You, too, can contribute.
- Read Ping.
- Listen to a reading of Ping by blogger/wastrel Scoot. 8 min., 7 sec., 113 Kbps (requires broadband).
Beckett's Dying Remains: The Process of Playwriting in the Ohio Impromptu Manuscripts by Adam Seelig, poet, playwright, theatre director and founder of One Little Goat Theatre Company.
Nothing is More Real: Experiencing Theory in the Texts for Nothing, by Paul Sheehan.

What kind of a theorist is Samuel Beckett, exactly? An artist of impoverishment, a theorist of the end of modernity or a mythologist of psychoanalysis, as three recent titles suggest. Sheehan examines one of Beckett's most overlooked works, the 13 prose fragments published, he says, almost out of desperation in 1955 as Texts for Nothing.
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.
Beckett, openness and experimental cinema by Michael Schell.
The Joys of Cycling with Beckett by Friedhelm Rathjen, Scheeßel, Germany.
Master's degree thesis: Samuel Beckett's Radio Plays: Music of the Absurd by Stefan-Brook Grant, Department of British and American Studies, University of Oslo.
An erudite thesis analyzing Beckett's radio plays.
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 — and visa versa. By Stephen Dilks, Univ. of Missouri Kansas City.
Samuel Beckett's (linguistic) exile: continuity through separation by Helen Astbury, Université Paris.
Eavesdrop on the London Beckett Seminar where the participants had fun trying to dope out the literary references as they collectively read
Essay on A Piece of Monologue by Hwa Soon Kim, Univ. of Inchon, Korea.
Samuel Beckett: The Complete Short Prose, 1929-1989 Edited by Stanley Gontarski. Review by Paul West in The Bookery Bookpress.
Eleuthéria, Beckett's first play, written in 1947 (before Godot) and steeped in controversy.
A brief introduction from American Bookseller
Eleutheria Revisited, a 1997 speech by Marius Buning, President, The Dutch Samuel Beckett Society, recounting the delightful story of the book that Sam didn't want published and the row over its translation into English, pitting Barney Rosset and Michael Brodsky against Jérôme Lindon. Prof. Buning sides against Brodsky, and gives an impassioned defense of the play, declaring it "worth having, worth studying, and — above all — worth seeing."

[ Index ]
Film starring Buster Keaton
- Some favorable comments by Katherine Waugh and Fergus Daly in Film West, Ireland.
- Some unfavorable comments by Ted Sludds in the very next issue: "Film...strikes me as being...a poor attempt by a genuine writer to move into a medium that he simply hadn’t the flair or understanding of to make a success."
- On Samuel Beckett's Film by Barney Rosset in , a new publication which features "the best writers writing about what they are most passionate about" for people who are "tired of stuffy, staid literary magazines that go down like cough medicine." Rosset recounts some fascinating details of the joys and agonies of shooting Film.
- Brownlow on Beckett (on Keaton). Filmmaker Kevin Brownlow talked with Sam about Buster.
- A review, of sorts, in Life Magazine, Aug. 14, 1964. A couple of nice stills of 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".
Magazine Littéraire
Beckett, inconnu et inconnaissable, un bel article par John Montague dans n° 35, Décembre 1969.
Samuel Beckett raconté par les siens dans n° 372, Janvier 1999.
Des librairies Initiales: Un Dossier: Samuel Beckett.
Beckett, un écrivain devant Dieu par Jean Onimus.
"Nous remercions Jean Onimus, Professeur Honoraire de l'Université de Nice-Sophia Antipolis, d'avoir bien voulu mettre à la disposition de tous les agrégatifs, sur notre serveur, le contenu de son étude sur Beckett publiée aux éditions Desclée de Brouwer dans la collection Les écrivains devant Dieu en 1967. Cet ouvrage est en effet maintenant épuisé."
De "France 3 en ligne": une biographie.
www.samuelbeckett.it il sito italiano dedicato a Samuel Beckett. Una brutta fissazione di Federico Fellini Platania, ma completo, impressionante e meraviglioso.
- La poesia di Samuel Beckett 18 poesie.
Desde Café Rincón Literario: Una biografía.

Párrafo introductario: El Sentido profundo de toda la obra literaria de Samuel Beckett, el Premio Nobel de Literatura de 1969, lo resume Pozzo en las últimas palabras que pronuncia en Esperando a Godot, antes de hacer mutis con Lucky en el segundo acto de la pieza: «Ellas paren a horcajadas sobre una tumba, la luz brilla un instante; luego, otra vez la noche.»
by Shigeru Ozawa.
Many, actually, very comprehensive Godot and Beckett pages in Japanese, and in addition:
日本サミュエル・ベケット研究会 Samuel Beckett Research Circle of Japan
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.
Has Beckett's Existentialism any roots in Hegel's Philosophy? by Kenneth Knapman.
Pseud's Corner: Academicspeak

Michael Guest
Between Contiguous Extremes: Beckett and Brunonian Minimalism 32KBytes
An excerpt: The "rumour," as a minimal reduction of all discourse, speaks only of the logos, whose presence is affirmed, in a sense, to the extent that meaning is communicated by Beckett's text. But at the same time, the minimalist reduction of this idea, and its concretion in the "notion" described (both words are used to refer to the same thing), creates an opposite, circular form of reasoning that implies entrapment in a Wake-ian Purgatory of textuality: a pre-cogito, the "rumour," the "notion," speaks the precondition for its own being.

Beckett and Foucault: Some Affinities 32KB
Act of Creation in Beckett's Catastrophe 40KB

Steven Connor Slow Going 38KB

Robert Lukehart
Reflections on Samuel Beckett: The Subjective Imperative of Voice 42KB

Waiting for Godot: A Synchronicity of Opposites 9.3KB

Russell SmithBeckett, Negativity and Cultural Value 26KB.
A paper presented -- after lunch -- at the "Social Justice/Social Judgement" conference, Univ. of Western Sydney, Australia, Saturday, April 25, 1998. Mr. Smith has deduced that Beckett's writings are "a bitterly negative, anti-humanist and even misanthropic body of work".

[ Index ]

Other Sites and Pages on Beckett

A bibliography of Beckett's works.
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.
And here's the accompanying medal. Sam might have been pleased — or highly amused — upon reading its inscription.
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.
presents... over 200 quotations by Sam, and from his works, from "the largest database of quotations ever published and representing the research of 154 experts". Here's one (#6154):
- From buddhanet.net, the original buddhist information & education network. Snippets from various Beckett works that Buddhists evidently relate to.
Think reprehensible. Apple's Samuel Beckett ad unsavoury at core by Vit Wagner in The Toronto Star.
How Beckett Was by Karl Orend in the Times Literary Supplement. Short – and generally favorable – reviews of four books by Beckett critics and/or "scholars":
From the review: "The critical industry that has grown up around Beckett has reached epidemic proportions... Few critics seem to be aware that they might take a hint from the author himself, and his disdain for academic prose."
Relatively recent books
- The Philosophy of Samuel Beckett by John Calder. The first study of the thinking and influences which lie behind the philosophy that motivated Beckett's work.
- Beckett in Black and Red: The Translations for Nancy Cunard's Negro, edited by Alan Friedman.
  2 translations
  - The Best Negro Jazz Orchestra by Robert Goffin
  - Louis Armstrong by Ernst Moerman
- 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 389), $99. Read one essay.
Brief book descriptions
Directing Beckett by Lois Oppenheim
The World of Samuel Beckett by Lois Gordon
Reading Godot 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.
- Another sample, a bit more legible.
- The first page of the Endgame manuscript, possibly typed by Sam, including — definately — his signature.
Waiting for Beckett, an award winning television documentary from Global Village but given only a tepid review by Walter Goodman in the New York Times. (Other distinctly different opinions are voiced here.) Read additional comments by the producer/director or buy the video.
Sir Peter Hall looks back at the first performances of Godot in English, which he directed.
- Godotmania. Hall's reflections upon the 50th anniversary date. "Theatre has never been the same." The Guardian, Jan. 4, 2003.
"Now What I Wonder Do I Mean By That? (Interpreting Beckett)" by Louis Menand. Theater criticism from Slate.

Evergreen Review Feature on Beckett

16 questions of a theological nature that preoccupied Jacques Moran in Molloy (pp. 166-7).

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, theatre artist.
Read about The Old Tune on the Tübingen, Germany Anglo-Irish Theatre Group site. Amusing, but not pure Beckett.
Company on stage at Williams College, by Lawrence Graver
Interactive Beckett (real, not virtual), from no less than The Royal Shakespeare Company.

Virtual (not real) Beckett. Play as seen through i-glasses. We must be in Kansas (at the University).

Waiting for Godot in various modes by "Richard Harter, Human Being?". Commentaries on Godot by: a preacher; Marxist; Freudian; pseudo-intellectual; feminist; evolutionary psychologist; Zen Buddhist; and deconstructionist.

Amazon.com Customers' Comments about Waiting for Godot.
Avg. Customer Review: Number of Reviews: 148 (as of March, 2006)
One entire review by a reader from Newark, New Jersey: "If Read Properly... This Book Will Save Your Life".

Striking – mostly – scenes from shorter plays: Act Without Words 1; Act Without Words 2; Breath; Come and Go₁; Come and Go₂; Eh Joe!₁; Eh Joe!₂; Footfalls; Ohio Impromptu; Play₁; Play₂; That Time; Not I; Rockaby; Rough for Theatre 2; Ghost Trio; Quad I; Catastrophe; All Strange Away (monologue); Happy Days and Krapp's Last Tape.
Images (not "portraits", but "identities in motion") of Sam by artist Louis Le Brocquy in 1987, again in 1987, 1989, 1992 and 1994. Really striking.
"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." David Levine tries in 1964, 1967, 1971, 1978, 1981 and 1986. Does he fail better? You decide.
- David! Look at these. Then maybe try again. (Not that he isn't capable. Here's some superb successes.)
[ Index ]
The Samuel Beckett Endpage A comprehensive Beckett site devoted to the author and his works. Many interesting pages including:
A photo gallery
A short biography
Timeline A chronology of his life and works in the context of his times.
Beckett on Stage Current and upcoming productions, world wide.
The Beckett Bulletin Board -- A Miscellany of News and Inquiry.
The official page of The Samuel Beckett Society
And much more.

The Dutch Samuel Beckett Foundationand Het Beckett blad (The Beckett Sheet), its semi-annual Newsletter.

The Maison Samuel-Beckett Association

An association created in 1997 for the purpose of purchasing the house in Roussillon where Beckett lived during World War II and opening it to the public as a cultural center and a "Writers Home".

Forums and Discussions
- Yahoo eGroups beckettlist mailing list. After a slow start, this one is now becoming the most interesting forum. It's basically a medium of exchange for people already conversant in Beckett, and if you register (free) and subscribe you can receive all communicants' messages by email and send them your own ideas. Otherwise you can just read what others have to say most recently or archived.
- Here's another Yahoo Beckett group, Samuel Beckett DialogNet, that hasn't yet been discovered by the spammers nor, unfortunately, by hardly anyone else. 32 messages in seven years. To even read the messages you've got to have a Yahoo ID and be approved for membership by the group "owner".
- And now, of course, there's , with their new Samuel Beckett group. So new, in fact, that the postings number fewer than ten.
  
  Google has better luck with their blog search for “Samuel Beckett”.
  
  Thousands of blogs (in English) but Google lets you look at "only" the first 1,000.
  
  Search results in all languages.
  
  English only.
  
  French only.
  
  Icelandic only
  
  Choose another language.
- Waiting for Godot colorful message board.. 174 threads, hundreds of messages dating back to 2001.
- The New Café Literature Conference Samuel Beckett topic. Registration required to even have a look at this moribund board.
Color coded essays and research papers, many quite good, from (so help me) .
Red essays: Free. Yellow Purple Blue Aqua Green essays: Not free, each color being better than the previous one, culminating with Green: "Fantastic".
Full list of Beckett related essays.

Three of the lengthier Red essays:
Technology and Ethics as Depicted in Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five

Waiting for Godot: Clear Criticism of Christianity. This was borrowed from The parallels between Christ and Lucky, a link posted in the Papers on Beckett section, above. It originally appeared at — and was promptly removed from — here.

Comparing Synge’s Riders to the Sea and Beckett’s Endgame
Waiting for Godot Online Study Guide. Click on the Act I and Act II topics to view Summaries and Commentaries. "Cliff Notes™ cost money but SparkNotes are FREE".

Sparknotes Endgame Study Guide
Sparknotes Happy Days Study Guide
Literature Guides
eNotes are content-rich study guides that include an introduction to the work, an author biography, a plot summary to help readers unravel and understand the events in the work, and stuff like that. eNotes cost money.

Waiting for Godot $9.95
Krapp's Last Tape $7.95
Endgame $7.95
Dante and the Lobster $7.95
Lecture time at : English 2302, Lesson 6: Waiting for Godot. Study these notes and then write an essay (but "avoid plot summary").
Still confused? Why not enroll in a one year, full time M.A. course in Beckett Studies at the University of Reading, England. Requires writing a 20,000 word dissertation and taking a viva voce examination.

The Beckett International Foundation at the Univ. of Reading.
The Beckett Collection at the Univ. of Reading. Over 750 books and documents. First click on
"Connect to Unicorn", then click on "Quick Login". Then enter "Samuel Beckett", select "author", select "Main Library" and click on "Search".
Are you a Beckettian? If so, you should have no trouble correctly answering at least ten of The Guardian's twelve multiple choice quiz questions about Sam and his works. Fill in the answers, then either click on Submit or view the correct answers here. 2003.
Here's a second (centenary) quiz from The Guardian. This one's even easier than the first. Answers.
Answers to 20-question Beckett quiz (one of which is wrong, and another questionable). The winner's choice of books was Samuel Beckett and the Arts edited by Lois Oppenheim.

Beckett the first class cricketer. He was an opening left hand batsman and left arm medium pace bowler, and once went wicketless for 64 runs.
Sam in Heaven? Oil painting by Brian O'Toole of 1920's cricket pitch scene.
Sam as Palliaci? Pastel painting by Moya Acton
Godot parodies

Waiting for Godot Pastiche
Waiting for the Unknown
Waiting for Gatchaman
Waiting For Krapp
Waiting For Sam
Still Waiting
Waiting for the Toad. Didi and Gogo guest star in
"Waiting for Godot", performed by the Guinea Pig Theatre (2 min. 24 sec.).
Flash animation. Download Flash player
"Since guinea pigs excel at waiting (among other things),
who better to bring this masterpiece to life than Guinea Pig Theater!"
Samuel Beckett as Inspiration

to the Oregon State Archives.
to a South African management consultant firm.
to an artist, Marc Snyder, who perceives Godot as Nightmare

to the composer, Michael Mantler, who was especially impressed by Watt.

to Jim Poyser, Zeitguy, who sat down and composed a satire of culture and journalism, Just Ask Buckett.

to Francis Warner, who established The Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust.

The 2003 Theatre Trust Award winner.
The 2004 Theatre Trust Award winner.
The 2005 Theatre Trust Award winner.
The 2006 Theatre Trust Award winner.

to the whimsical administration of St. James's Hospital, Dublin, naming their psychiatric ward after Sam.

to the city Fathers (and, presumably, Mothers) of Dublin who have decided to name a new bridge after Sam. Anticipated completion is in 2008, and there will probably be a plaque honoring Sam placed near the base of the bridge. However Sam's famous tribute to Ireland, related to a friend when he left for France in 1940, will probably not be included in the text: "I'd rather live in a France at war than an Ireland at peace."

Here are some of the many, many authors and publications that have been banned in Ireland over the years, Sam amongst them, of course.

Ireland, right up to the present day, still has a Board of Censorship.

Any information or counselling on abortion can't embrace supporting or promoting it. Violators are liable to a fine not exceeding £1500 (€1900). However any such information involving anti-abortion advocacy is perfectly legal.

EPISODE 7: SAMUEL BECKETT, YOUR RIDE IS HERE
Sci Fi audio drama, featuring Bill Irwin as Carlyle & John Turturro as Benjamin.
Click on Hi Fi (56 Kbps) or Low Fi (28 Kbps). 23 minutes. Quite good.
cookies

merde

THE GIST OF IT, a publication of anyman.com Sam played out his endgame just before the Coming of the Internet, but here's a page that might have brightened up his day.

Sam's dog, a Kerry Blue terrier, allegedly the breed of dog referred to in Krapp's Last Tape.

Sam's car
A 1963 Citroen 2CV, the beloved French "people's car" (called "Deux Chevaux" in France). Originally advertised on the Internet on Oct. 12, 1998, but has now been sold. Don't feel bad, it was obviously "not cheap".
From the Shop, Shrewsbury, New Jersey.
A 5 inch bronze bust statue. $40.

A tee shirt “sporting” a black and white photo. Not exactly the best of the hundreds of known and unknown images of Sam. $25.
Beckett's Dublin Beer. No comment.

Alibris_™ Books You May Not Be Too Excited About Finding
Nohow On. 4to, full black leather with etchings by Robert Ryman and signed in the colophon by the author & the artist. Typeset in English Monotype Bodoni at Golgonooza Letterfoundry on paper from Cartiere Enrico Magnini. Laid in a suede lined linen clamshell box. Design by Benjamin Shiff, The Limited Edition Club, New York. $3500. Also available in paperback for $8.80.
The North. A prose piece, first edition, one of fifteen signed copies, with an extra suite of three tissue-guarded signed etchings by Avigdor Arikha. Printed by Will and Sebastian Carter at the Rampant Lions Press, Cambridge on heavyweight paper made by J. Barcham Green. Loose gatherings in wrappers. Seven (7) pages. Fine. $3,646.
More Pricks Than Kicks. Well, it turns out that the Alibris description of this book had a minor problem. The previously posted price of $100,000.00 should have read $1000.00. Probably didn't sell too well. It's still a limited edition of 100 signed and numbered copies, printed on 1/4 gilt-lettered vellum, all edges gilt and each copy (in original slipcase) is near fine (only minor spine toning). However if you just want to read it you can buy it for $8.80.

Wikipedia / Beckett Interviews

"This article is on the writer Samuel Barclay Beckett (April 13, 1906-December 22, 1989). For [Dr. Samuel Beckett], the fictional scientist, see Quantum Leap".
The Hapless Dilettante News The Samuel Beckett Interviews

[ Index ]

On-line Texts

Some posted without explicit permission.

Act Without Words.
Graphics by Kristina Pugliese, Illinois State Univ.
Act Without Words II
Breath ("Inspiration" = Inhalation, "Expiration" = Exhalation)
Catastrophe
Come and Go
Eh, Joe
Fizzle 3 and Fizzle 4
Imagination Dead Imagine
Lessness
- Here's one example of why scholars and intellectuals — in this case a computer scientist and a student of English and International Affairs — are drawn to Sam:
  Lessness: Randomness, Consciousness and Meaning by Elizabeth Drew and Mads Haahr, Trinity College, Univ. of Dublin.
  From the abstract: "Lessness is a prose piece in which Beckett used random permutation to order 60 sentences... and is comprised of two of the approximately 8.3 x 10⁸¹ possible orderings of these sentences. The authors have developed a web site that generates versions of Lessness, exploring the effects of the capabilities of computing in the creation and exploration of art."
  Keywords: chaos, randomness, Samuel Beckett, postmodern fiction, permutation, consciousness
- Sing (or hum) a bit of Lessness along with the Andy Laster Quartet, who have captured "something of Beckett's...obtuse, oddly-vaudevillian humor".
Not I
A Piece of Monologue
To both read and listen to it, first click here, then here. (128 Kbps broadband)

Play

Stirrings Still

Company (excerpts)
The sucking stones sequence from Molloy.
The "conceptual writing" in Watt. Footwear, movements around the room, and furniture positions including chairs.
Poems
   Two texts, nicely parsed and punctuated by Colin Greenlaw.
   The Unnamable The last sentence.
   Worstward Ho
       Brief review in The New Yorker (1984)
         DANCING excerpts

Krapp's Last Tape

Endgame
Waiting for Godot
Act 1
Act 2
Annotated version by Penelope Merritt
Losigkeit (Lessness)
Weder (Gedicht)
Was würde ich tun ohne diese Welt (Gedicht)
Sechs Gedichte
Endspiel
que ferais-je sans ce monde (poème)
Bing (poème)
Due poesie: cosa farei senza questo mondo / Nel morto d'una notte.
Моллой Molloy
Мэлон  умирает Malone dies
ПОСЛЕДНЯЯ ЛЕНТА КРЭППА Krapp's Last Tape
ВСЕ, ЧТО ПАДАЕТ All That Fall

Belarusian
   У чаканьні Гадо (Waiting for Godot)
         ДЗЕЯ  ПЕРШАЯ
         ДЗЕЯ  ДРУГАЯ
Polish
   Czekajac na Godota (Akt 1 tylko)
Hungarian
   Krepp utolsó szalagja (Krapp's Last Tape)
Basque
   Godoten esperoan
   Azkenburuko bulkadak (Stirrings Still)
Español
   El Expulsado
   El Final
   Esperando a Godot
   Molloy
   Malone Muere
   Compañía
   Textos para Nada (1)
   Una tarde (One evening)
   Sobresaltos (Stirrings Still)
Korean
   Waiting for Godot

[ Index ]

On-Line Bookstores

Amazon.com

Books by Beckett
Books about Beckett. 408 and counting.
Amazon.fr: Livres en français
Barnes and Noble

Books by
Books about
Powell's Books

Books about

Calder Publications

A brief personal memoir, followed by a list of books published by Beckett's friend, John Calder, some of which are available nowhere else. Included in this list are Beckett Shorts, a series of twelve shorter writings, the best known being First Love, Worstward Ho and Three Novellas (The Expelled, The Calmative and The End). All twelve are available individually or together as a boxed set. All have covers with photographs of Sam caught in different moods.
Review (favourable) of Beckett Shorts by Nicholas Lezard in The

On the other hand, Christopher Ricks in The Guardian takes a very hard look indeed, at the new Calder book, "Samuel Beckett: Poems 1930-1989".

W. H. Smith ("At the frontiers of technology and customer service").

Books by. Enter "Samuel Beckett" in "Author", click on Search.

Books about. Enter "Samuel Beckett" in "Title", click on Search.

[ Index ]

Film and Video

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 is being shown on Britain's Channel 4 and on RTE in Ireland (the co-producers), and has now been released as a boxed video set.
Channel 4's Beckett on Film website. A lovely, comprehensive site encompassing dozens of pages including a brief critical introduction to the plays, a chronology of Beckett's life, information about the origins of the project and the films' producers, synopses about each film and stills and clips from the films. Quite impressive.
- View 45 seconds of Pozzo's famous (and here a bit melodramatic) exit from Godot, Act 2. (Requires broadband.)
The boxed set is now available for purchase, all 19 plays on four DVDs.
- In the UK/Ireland from Amazon.co.uk, £70.
- In the US from Documentary-Video or Ambrose Video, $150.
  Price includes public perfomance rights. Perhaps less if purchased for private viewing.
On videocasette and DVD
Four are individually for sale from Canada on DVD and VHS NTSC.
- Waiting for Godot DVD/VHS. $30 US.
- Endgame DVD/VHS. $28 US.
- Krapp's Last Tape VHS. $27 US
- Happy Days VHS. $27 US.

Waiting for Godot is being sold in the UK in VHS PAL format. £19.00.

Beckett goes to Hollywood by Tillmann Allmer in The Observer, Nov. 19, 2000. An excellent summation of the entire project that follows an unfortunate headline, given the fact that none of these plays were filmed in Hollywood. Indeed, one (Happy Days) was shot outdoors on a volcano in the Canary Islands.
Stardust Melancholy. Jonathan Kalb asks: Does the filming of Samuel Beckett's complete works compromise his theatrical legacy? On the Theatre Communications Group website.
Blobs, babble and blackness. Adrian Searle is overwhelmed by Comedie (Play). In The Guardian, Dec. 9, 2000.
Short reviews of several of the films by Liam Lacey in the Toronto Globe and Mail.
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." A BBC production, 2 parts, 55 minutes each, colour. $259.
Between Beckett and Brecht: Looking In, Looking Out Theatre director Richard Eyre examines the works of these two dramatists and the impact they had, both on playwrights and on the theatre itself. A BBC production, 51 minutes, colour. $149.
Happy Days
A video of the original airing of Happy Days, June 25, 1980 on WNET/13, New York, in their Great Performances series. Distributed by The Broadway Theatre Archive.
Starring Irene Worth as Winnie and George Voskovec as Willie. Directed by David Heeley and produced by Joseph Papp. DVD, 90 minutes, color. $24.95.
On DVD "Region 1" (North America) On VHS NTSC videocasette.
DVD also available at Amazon.com. $22.46 new, $17.02 used.
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 VHS. (Or $49.95 here, DVD or VHS.)
- View 5 minutes of Krapp's Last Tape. 225Kbps broadband.
Beckett's most famous plays on video, presented by the San Quentin Drama Workshop using Beckett's stage directions, are frequently available on video cassette (please inquire), and there are tentative plans to eventually release them on DVD. Here's a nice Beckett Directs Beckett website, including clips, from the producer of the films, Mitchell Lifton.

If you've got broadband (or else if you're very patient) download and view a 42 second Quicktime movie of a scene from the BDB Godot, 3.775 megabytes, in colour.
Global Village videos
- Waiting for Beckett
- Peephole Art: Beckett for Television
       Not I
       Quad I & II
       What Where
View 64 seconds of a Quad I performance. (Requires broadband.) From Media Art Net, Germany.
- An explanation of Quad I.
Foxrock Books videos
On VHS: Film and Waiting for Godot (the version with Zero Mostel and Burgess Meredith, 1961)
British Universities Film and Video Council
(Available in PAL or NTSC format).

[ Index ]

Audio

Samuel Beckett Radio Plays
The original plays produced by the BBC, 1957-1976. Distributed by the British Library as a 4-CD set, £40.
- CD 1: All That Fall
- CD 2: From an Abandoned Work / Embers
- CD 3: The Old Tune / Words and Music
- CD 4: Cascando / Rough for Radio II
Produced by Voices International, 1986-89, and distributed by Evergreen Review.
Each CD is $20.
- All That Fall, 2 CDs.
- Words and Music. Music composed by Morton Feldman.
- Embers
- Cascando
- Rough for Radio II
Performed by the Gare St Lazare Players on RTE Ireland as part of the 2006 Beckett Centenary Festival.
- Embers Begins after an introduction to the series by its producer, Aidin Mathews (19 min.).
- Words and Music Try figuring it out with the text and perhaps even sing along with "Words", or go here for an explanation.
- Rough for Radio 1
- Rough for Radio 2
- Cascando
- The Old Tune
- All That Fall

From , Britain. Listen to a two part interview with Samuel Beckett's biographer, James Knowlson.
- Part 1. Knowlson's recollections of Samuel Beckett and the writing of Damned to Fame. 17 minutes.
- Part 2. Knowlson talks in detail about his latest book, Images of Beckett. 11 minutes.
  (Requires Flash 6 player: Download it or, alternatively, just click here for Part1 and Part2.)

Waiting for Godot
A live performance by the Stratford Festival players recorded by CBC Radio.
- Listen to the entire Act 1 in Real Audio.
- Listen to Vladimir sing, in German, "A dog came in the kitchen" at the beginning of Act 2. From a 1981 Deutsche Grammophon recording of the play.
Murphy
On . Beckett's comic masterpiece about "romantic entanglements that foil the search for metaphysical certitude". Narrated by Fionnula Flanagan and featuring 20 of the finest English and Irish voices. Produced in association with Viper Records, TZ Entertainment and The San Quentin Drama Workshop.

The complete unabridged text on six CDs, $50.00. Available at no cost to prisons.
Listen to six Sections -- more than an hour -- in streaming broadband mp3 (160Kbps).
Molloy, performed on audio CD by Conor Lovett. A Gare St Lazare Players production.
From
- Waiting for Godot. An audio performance by Sean Barrett, David Burke, Terence Rigby and Nigel Anthony, directed by John Tydeman, for many years head of BBC Radio Drama. On two CDs, approx. 2 hours. Listen to a very fine four minute sample.
- Four dramatic performances. Krapp's Last Tape, read by Jim Norton, Not I, read by Juliet Stevenson, That Time, read by John Moffat and A Piece of Monologue, read by Peter Marinker. Two CDs, approx. 2-1/2 hours.
- Molloy, read in its entirety by Dermot Crowley and Sean Barrett. On seven CDs. Running time: approx. 7 hours.
- Malone Dies, read in its entirety by Sean Barrett. Five CDs. Running time: approx. 6 hours.
- The Unnamable, read in its entirety by Sean Barrett. Five CDs. Running time: approx. 6 hours.
CD of Words and Music. A 1987 radio play collaboration between Beckett and composer Morton Feldman. Performed by the Ensemble Recherche on a Disques Montaigne CD.
Listen to Ubu Web Sounds. All are in MP3 at broadband speed.
- A Piece of Monologue read by Ronald Pickup. Robin Rimbaud, aka Scanner, has added a nice “sound installation” background (electronic music). To read along, here's the text.
- Krapp's Last Tape, performed by Donald Davis. MP3, 224Kbps.
  - To both read and listen to (stream) this 2-part performance, first click here and here for Part 1, and later click on "Back", then here and then "Forward" for Part 2. (MP3, 224 Kbps)
- Text for Nothing #8, read by Jack MacGowran. MP3.
- ...the whole thing's coming out of the dark Beckett used this terminology to describe the origin and quality of his radio plays. Three texts are read here by the actress Natasha Parry, the actor Barry McGovern and the American author Raymond Federman. The playing directions for the instrumentalist on this CD (Uwe Dieksen) are allegedly derived directly from the so-called sucking stones sequence in Beckett's novel Molloy. Intermedium Records. Order it (new, from eBay Germany) or go to Ubu Web and listen here (to yes, the whole thing) in MP3.
Ubu Web: "An unlimited resource with unlimited space... Ubu Web posts much of its content without permission".
Listen to a performance by Prof. Daniel Foster, Duke University Theater Arts Department, of Words and Music. For this version, used in his course "Radio: Theater of the Mind", Prof. Foster wrote the musical score and plays all the parts. The text of the play is included. (Broadband required.)
Listen to a reading of Ping by blogger/wastrel Scoot. 8 min., 7 sec., 113 Kbps (requires broadband).
MacGowran Speaking Beckett. Jack MacGowran speaks extracts from seven of Beckett's works. On Claddagh Records.
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.
Alleged Beckett sounds Acoustic and synthesized (including a 30 sec. sample)

[ Index ]

Beckett Festivals and Events

Beckett Festival and Symposium, The Hague, 1992
The Beckett Festival, Lincoln Center, 1996
- Dispelling the Gloom. Richard Corliss's report on it in Time magazine.
- A second opinion by... Robert S. McNamara? Yes, the Robert S. McNamara of Vietnam War infamy, who praises these "wonderful" performances but complains about the absence of American actors. Still patriotic after all those years.
Multimedia Exhibition: Samuel Beckett/Bruce Nauman Kunsthalle, Treitlstraße 2, Vienna, Austria, February 4 - April 30, 2000.
"This exhibition represents a first attempt to bring together the writer Samuel Beckett and the artist Bruce Nauman, two unique, intense and highly complex artists in one concept and space. More than any other artists, Beckett and Nauman offer an experience that stimulates the public to detach itself from its familiar modes of perception and of thought, to open itself to other conceptions of space."
- Nauman .. Beckett .. Beckett .. Nauman: the necessity of working in an interdisciplinary way
Mini-Festival, Chicago, June, 2000.
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 took 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 on Film, Nederland 3 television. April 30 - August 27, 2002, The Netherlands. All 19 plays.

Beckett on Film, PBS, USA. Sunday, September 15, 2002, 10 PM. Seven of the shorter works, and on Jan. 1, 2003 at 9:30 PM, Waiting for Godot.

Samuel Beckett Symposium

     after Beckett
                 d'après Beckett
     Sydney, Australia, Jan. 6-10, 2003
A CELEBRATION OF THE 50th ANNIVERSARY OF WAITING FOR GODOT Sydney will host a series of events including premieres of new productions of Godot and Endgame, cultural events exploring the diversity of Beckett's artistic influence, radio broadcasts of his works, visual arts exhibitions and a likely screening of the Beckett on Film plays. In addition, a conference will gather leading academics and practitioners in the fields of Beckett studies and theatre performance from around the world. A call for papers has been announced and the deadline for submission of proposals is July 15, 2002.
Images of Beckett: Photographs by John Haynes
Newark, Delaware, USA.
Blessed Unrest - An Evening of Samuel Beckett
Play, Rockaby and That Time, presented by the Chaikin Memorial Theater, a new performing arts organization.
New York City, January 14-25, 2004.
- A moving, two-part tribute in the Village Voice to Joseph Chaikin (1935-2003), the highly acclaimed and much admired actor and director.
, New York City, starring Tony Roberts, Adam Heller, Kathryn Grody and Alvin Epstein. At the Irish Repertory Theatre, Feb. 15-Apr. 10, 2005.
Access All Beckett with Conor Lovett and The Gare St Lazare Players
A suite of 5 recitals of classic Beckett prose pieces touring as a package for 2005 and 2006.
- Texts for Nothing and Worstward Ho, March 9/10, 2005, at the Irish Cultural Centre, Paris.
- Texts for Nothing, Enough and Worstward Ho, April 4-16, 2005, at the Cork 2005 Festival, Cork, Ireland.
Access All Beckett at the Dublin Beckett Centenary Festival, 2006.
PRÉSENCE DE SAMUEL BECKETT, August 1-August 11, 2005. An 11 day Beckett colloquium at Le Centre Culturel International de Cerisy la Salle, Basse-Normandie, France.
Ce colloque se propose, à la veille du centenaire de la naissance de l’auteur, de faire le point sur son importance en tenant compte de l’apport de la recherche internationale. Il proposera des lectures et des sujets de discussion autour des thèmes majeurs de l’œuvre beckettienne: ses racines dans le passé, sa portée culturelle et artistique, sa dimension philosophique et esthétique, ses interférences avec d’autres cultures et d’autres formes d’art, son influence enfin sur les générations suivantes en France et à l’étranger. La langue de travail sera le français mais on ne négligera pas évidemment le côté bilingue. (The working language will be French but the bilingual side will obviously not be neglected.)
Literary Events at The Calder Bookshop, London
    June 9, 2005: BECKETT'S MURPHY. Great humour, delightful bohemian episodes and a novel way of introducing philosophy make this work a delight. An abbreviated adaptation will be read by three actors.
    June 23, 2005: BECKETT'S OUTBURSTS. Three actors from the Godot Company give a rehearsed reading of a new version of Beckett's most emotive and amusing prose.
    July 14, 2005: MOLLOY: BECKETT'S GREAT FICTIONAL CREATION. A recitation by the Godot Company of a new version of this classic. Afterwards the audience will be asked to comment.
    March 2, 2006: BECKETT'S WORSTWARD HO. An astonishing picture of the Creation of life, not a happy event as it brings pain into the world. Prose of extreme economy with some of Beckett's most telling images and quotable lines.
    April 13, 2006: THE BECKETT CENTENARY DAY LECTURE & READING. John Calder will talk about his relationship to Sam, and Sean Barrett will read from the most autobiograpical writings
    April 20, 2006: BECKETT'S THE LOST ONES. A reading by actors from The Godot Company of Beckett's metaphorical picture of a community like the human one, seeking ways to find out what lies outside the cylinder in which it is trapped.
    May 11, 2006: BECKETT'S THE UNNAMABLE. Actors from the Godot Company give a rehearsed reading of choice extracts from the third novel of the trilogy. Echoes of Dante, the Bible and other Beckett works are clearly in evidence.
    June 15, 2006: WHAT'S WRONG WITH ELEUTHERIA? John Calder will talk about the reasons that Eleutheria, Beckett's first full-length play, has never been performed and is typical of other of his writings which were initially supressed but later released.
    July 13, 2006: BECKETT'S WATT. Extracts from Beckett's funniest novel will be read by actors from the Godot Company.
Admission £5. Includes wine.
- @ THE BOOKSHOP THEATRE

[ Index ]

2006 Centennial Festivities

beckett centenary festival 2006

at the barbican centre, London.

Spanning 40 days and 40 nights, a cornucopia of Beckett performances and events:
- 69 stage performances, featuring a celebrated production by the Gate Theatre, Dublin, of Waiting for Godot, directed by Walter Asmus.
- 15 film showings.
- 6 prose and poetry readings.
- 4 panel discussions.
From March 21 to April 9.
From April 10 to May 6.

beckett centenary festival 2006

in Dublin at the Gate Theatre and other venues

March 24 to June 30, 2006. A series of centenary events including:
- A symposium: The Beckett Legacy: A Centenary Celebration. Talks and panels featuring invited artists and scholars including a meeting of the International Samuel Beckett Working Group.
- The Gare St Lazare Players ‘Access All Beckett’
  Prose works and novels: Texts for Nothing, Worstward Ho!, A Piece of Monologue, Enough and the Beckett Trilogy.
- An analysis of some of the films in the Beckett on Film series.
- Visual arts exhibitions at several venues and a "Beckett and Trinity" exhibition at the Trinity College Library.
Gare St Lazare Players Ireland and RTE Radio One (Irish national radio) are co-producing new versions of the Beckett Radio Plays for broadcast during the Beckett Centenary Festival, April 10-16, 2006. Listen to all of them, free of charge.
Beckett at Reading UK 2006 Their series of events include:
- Exhibition at the Museum of Reading, March 25-June 25. On view will be the rich treasure of the Beckett archive that tells the story of Beckett's life and work. Further information.
- Gala Event in the Concert Hall at Reading Town Hall, April 2. Readings, recitals and performances. Directed by Anthony Minghella.
- Conference at Wantage Hall, March 30-April 2. Featuring scholars from around the world presenting and discussing current trends and research in Beckett studies.
Samuel Beckett: Debts and Legacies, 2006
A seminar at Oxford University, April-June, 2006.

Eight Beckett scholars will reassess Beckett's bi-directional position by examining some of the recently uncovered influences that shaped his own unique writings, and by scrutinizing, in turn, how his image and his work influenced other authors, thinkers, composers and visual artists.
At the Centre Culturel Irlandais , Paris.
- Thursday, April 13: The first of several Beckett centenary events, a discussion with Irish author John Banville.
- Friday, May 19: A reading of Samuel Beckett's Textes pour Rien by the famous "Lecteurs sonores" Les Livreurs.
SAMUEL BECKETT IN KASSEL, GERMANY. Beckett-Jahr 2006: Das Kasseler Programm, Mai-Juli, 2006.
Kulturstiftung des Bundes - Samuel Beckett: Residua. Berlin, Tel Aviv, Krakau, February-April, 2006.
FESTIVAL BECKETT BUENOS AIRES Abril/Mayo/Junio 2006.
Atlanta: At the center of a worldwide celebration
Overview
Plans for 2006
News. Beckett productions all over the place in Georgia (USA).
Upcoming Events
Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre BECKETTFEST, Pittsburgh, Pa. August 25 through... September 11, 2006. Performances and readings of all 19 Beckett stage plays.
Suburban and exurban Chicago, that is.
- Waiting for Godot in Elmhurst, Illinois. Weekends, April 7-23, 2006.
- Waiting for Godot in Aurora, Illinois. Fridays and Saturdays, March 17-April 15.
Sofia, BulgariaSamuel Beckett Festival, 27 April-12 May.
Samuel Beckett Festival, Tokyo 2006 国際サミュエル・ベケットシンポジウム東京2006
Beckett at 100: New Perspectives. An International Conference
Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, Feb. 9-11, 2006.
Red Bank, New Jersey, to Host 2006 Festival Celebrating Samuel Beckett on his Centennial. At the Two River Theatre Company, Mar.16-Apr. 8, 2006.
The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the Univ. of Texas will commemorate the centenary with a Web exhibition.
Centennial inspired Symposia, Conferences, Seminars, Colloquiums, Palaver
from June to December, 2006
- Aix-en-Provence, Université de Provence. 14, 15 et 16 juin: Samuel Beckett et les quatre éléments.
- Rio de Janeiro, Centro Cultural Telemar. July 11 to 23: Festival Beckett 100 Años.
- London, Birbeck and Goldsmiths Colleges, Tate Modern. 5-7 October: Beckett & Company.
- Paris, École Normale Supérieure. 20-21 Octobre: Beckett and the Thirties.
- Hamburg, Hauptgebäude der Universität Hamburg, Hörsaal B. 10-12 November: Beckett in Town: Die Stadt al Inspirationsquelle.
- Northampton, Univ. of Northampton Avenue Campus. 1^st-3^rd December: Birth was the death of him.
- Lille, Université Charles-de-Gaulle. 8-9 December: Beckett's Traces.
Not very much and besides, it's finished, it must be nearly finished. But no matter. Try again (in 2106).
- The Beeb did, however, on Centennial Day post a very short page which included a few blogs. Here's one:

SAMUEL BECKETT: The Grove Centenary Edition.

In commemoration of the centenary of his birth, April 13, 2006, Grove Press is publishing a special four-volume edition of Beckett's collected works with introductory comment by Edward Albee, J. M. Coetzee, Salman Rushdie and Colm Tóibín. There will also be a new bilingual edition of Waiting for Godot. A bit more information is available on the Grove Press website.

The Correspondence of Samuel Beckett. A four volume edition that will contain about 2500 letters from him, with annotations incorporating portions of another 4000-5000 letters to, from, and about him and his work. Publication by Cambridge University Press in 2007.