Experimental Beckett: Contemporary Performance Practices (Elements in Beckett Studies)
Cambridge University Press, 4/30/2020
EAN 9781108737791, ISBN10: 110873779X
Paperback, 86 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 0.5 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
How do twenty-first century theatre practitioners negotiate the dynamics of tradition and innovation across the works of Samuel Beckett? Beckett's own tendencies toward fluidity of genre, iteration/repetition, and collaboration – modes that also define the 'experimental' – allow for greater openness than is often assumed. Reading recent performances for creative uses of embodiment, environment, and technology reveals the increasingly interdisciplinary, international, and intermedial character of contemporary Beckettian practice. The experimentation of current practitioners challenges a discourse based on historical controversies, exposing a still-expanding terrain for Beckett in performance.
1. Positioning the 'experimental' in Beckett
2. Text and embodiment ('first the body')
3. Space and environment ('first the place')
4. Media and technology ('first both')
5. Beckett beyond boundaries
a dialogue.