April 18, 2006

Kicking Against The Pricks

"As a role model, [Beckett's] as hip and cool as can possibly be", said John Kelly, a radio disc jockey who was host of several televised Beckett discussions this week. (from the NYT, 15/4/06). Gawd help us all.

(Beckett's always struck me as a conceptual artist of the first degree, in that for me his plays are better unstaged, or, rather, staged in the mind only. It's enough to read a one-paragraph precis of most of them to let your mind run riot and to get the point; the staged versions have always disappointed me as too obvious, too telegraphed in advance, too much like mime with words, too … stagey. More congenially, perhaps, they always work as radio plays, for obvious reasons. His novels — Murphy, especially — on the other hand, work nicely in the flesh for me).

2 Comments:

At 4/21/2006 3:38 pm, Blogger Phil said...

i sort of agree - except for krapp's last tape which has always been his most human piece. every performance i've seen has hit me in the heart instead of the head.

 
At 4/21/2006 10:36 pm, Blogger Jimmy Little said...

Ah, that makes me want to go out and hear Krapp's Last Tape -- I haven't actually heard it yet, surprisingly enough, given its fame (I've been subjected to so many other staged Becketts over the years). So many plays, so little time, dammit...

 

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