Book contents
4 - Considerations of acting in the late plays
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 June 2011
Summary
Though critics often refer to a comprehensive Beckett aesthetic, the author's oeuvre is in fact not at all uniform regarding matters of theater practice, and any general statements about approach should be reconsidered and refined with respect to the specific demands of the later plays (and of the media plays as well, which I take up in chapter 6). Having spoken about reluctance among theater practitioners to accept ambiguity as a positive value, I must also acknowledge that acceptance of it is no guarantee of success, especially in works such as Rockaby and Ohio Impromptu. It does not necessarily follow that an actor who is effective in early works will also be so in the late ones, or the other way round. And furthermore, it is possible for two actors of comparable vocal and physical talent to have equal sensitivity to Beckett's ambiguities and for one of them to be far more effective in a late role.
Trying to find reasons for such discrepancies can, of course, be as complicated as trying to articulate the differences between two human beings, but it is not an utterly quixotic effort when one focuses on the closely circumscribed circumstances of the short, late plays. In chapter 2, I used the example of Billie Whitelaw to demonstrate that a certain kind of acting significantly affects and effects meaning in these works, despite their severely delimited physical conditions, and I want now to situate that kind of acting in the context of the audience/stage transaction described in both preceding chapters, in the interests of characterizing a performance sensibility specific to late Beckett.
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- Beckett in Performance , pp. 48 - 68Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989