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:
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.
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...
Post a Comment
<< Home