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Reviving Samuel Beckett: Two performances celebrate the centennial of author’s birth

By Katherine McMullen

A dark, silent stage. A burst of light, energy and sound. A head, emerging from a funeral urn. Then darkness.

Famous for their thematical complexity, and perhaps their inaccessibility, two of Samuel Beckett’s plays come to life this weekend.

The year 2006 marks the centennial of the birth of Beckett, considered one of the greatest playwrights of all-time. This significant celebration in the international theatrical community has compelled the Grinnell College theatre community to host a celebration of its own.

“Because Grinnell has a tradition of doing Beckett periodically, it was particularly important to celebrate the centenary,” said director Ellen Mease, Theatre.

Mease, working with three assistant directors, a guest lighting designer from New York, a guest set and prop designer from Chicago and a cast of ten students and one faculty member, has compiled a collection of seven Beckett pieces to be performed in Roberts Theater Nov. 18-20. The performances are in two parts: Frescoes of the Skull and Krapp’s Last Tape. Frescoes of the Skull is composed of six short plays: “Play,” “Come and Go,” “Not I,” “Footfalls,” “A Piece of Monologue” and “Ohio Impromptu.”

“Each of the short plays follows chronologically from the previous one, and the ultimate goal of the whole evening is to show the way Beckett’s renewed commitment to the aesthetic of less is more has produced over the span of the composition of these plays, highly unusual and very distinct, though thematically very consistent, treatments of humanity on the cross. It’s not an evening of laughs,” Mease said.

Krapp’s Last Tape, a one man show performed by Christopher Connelly, Theatre, in conjunction with Frescoes of the Skull, takes viewers through one man’s reflections upon the life he has led. Connelly, who performed the role while in his early twenties, brings to the part a greater understanding of the character.

“When I first did it all those milestones of aging and anything else, life choices were way, way in the future,” Connelly said. “It’s very interesting to reflect back on the aging process and the choices one makes in life.”

Beckett’s works have presented a particular challenge to the actors and directors.

“There’s a lot of difficulty. The texts are really dense, and they’re difficult to memorize,” said assistant director Brian Fritsch ’06. “Trying to find what’s really important to the text and set aside things we know we can’t deal with has been a challenge.”

“It’s not as accessible to young people who maybe still haven’t had the chance to experience human suffering or old age or a lot of the themes that he’s talking about,” Noga Ashkenazi ’09, assistant director and member of the Samuel Beckett Society, said.

Hours of study and rehearsal have gone into understanding and upholding the reflective mood of Beckett’s Frescoes of the Skull and Krapp’s Last Tape. Grinnell actors and directors have tried to convey Beckett’s wisdom and insight into the human condition.

Though the mood and message have been painstakingly maintained by actors and directors, Beckett’s compositions still present a challenge to viewers. Beckett does not convey his message with the simplicity and merriment some have come to expect in theatrical productions.

“When people first start approaching Beckett’s works, it seems inaccessible. It seems dense. It seems very intellectual. It is all those things,” said Connelly. “I think students and actors get that, can appreciate that intellectual connection, but it’s hard to get that emotional connection to these characters because they seem so non-realistic and such an alien to the way we live our lives. But Beckett is stripping away a lot of the externals of life to get to those cores, those essences of truth about what it means to be alive.”

“I think that if anyone comes to see the show they should try their best to look beyond the sparseness and apparent pessimism just to find that humanity and humor that is there,” said Fritsch, “even though it’s maybe difficult to see at first glance.”

Sidebar: Facts about Beckett

Famous quotations:

• “I speak of an art turning from it in disgust, weary of its puny exploits, weary of pretending to be able, of being able, of doing a little better the same old thing, of going a little further along a dreary road.”

• “It’s no use blaming words; they’re no shoddier than what they peddle.” –regarding his skepticism about the limits of language and thought.

• “The expression that there is nothing to express, nothing with which to express, nothing from which to express, no power to express, no desire to express, together with the obligation to express.”

Other works:

• Eleutheria

• Waiting for Godot

• Endgame

• Happy Days

• Play

• Film

• Come and Go

• Eh Joe

• Breath

• Not I

• Malone Dies

• Worstward Ho

• Stirrings Still

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