Throughout the works of Samuel Beckett there is an intense focus on the body both in its role as a medium of “physicalized language” (Hunka, 2010) as well as a metaphysical and philosophical catalyst or metaphor. The body in Beckett is thereby not merely a vessel for a character but a prop of its own that can be used to explore or exaggerate the themes and ideas of his plays. There is a dichotomy between the body and mind throughout Beckett’s plays and an examination of the plays Happy Days (1961) and Act Without Words Part One (1956) shows the reliance that is placed on the body as a mode of communication that language cannot achieve itself. The body is so intrinsic to the works of Beckett that even in the radio play All That Fall (1957) he creates a radiophonic body to add solidity to the soundscape for the listener in an environment based in their imagination.
In the play Happy Days Beckett uses the mobility, or lack thereof, of the characters bodies as declining force as they age and are abandoned by the outside world. The play begins with the image of Winnie “embedded up to above her waist in exact centre of a mound” in the middle of a scorched and isolated land. She is trapped in the ground, an example of bodily iconoclasm (Guest, 2004, p. 164) as her bodily ‘self’ is deconstructed leaving just her mind behind. She makes up for what she cannot do with her body with her talking to the quiet and mostly hidden Willie, who we only see the back of the head of in the first act. Her chatter is incessant and repetitive, reminiscent of the benign prattle of an older woman with frequent references to the “old style” of her youth. By the second act, Winnie is buried past her neck and is unable to move anything but her eyes which dar...
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...ujourd'hui, 14, 161-177. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25781464
Hunka, G. (2010, May). Access to the Body: The Theatre of Revelation in Beckett, Foreman, and Barker. Hyperion,Volume V, issue 1,, pp. 17-27.
Lamont, R. (1987). To Speak the Words of "The Tribe": The Wordlessness of Samuel Beckett. In Burkman, & K. Burkman, Myth and Ritual in the Plays of Samuel Beckett (p. 60). London and Toronto: Fairleigh Dickson University Press.
Lamont, R. (1987). To Speak the Words of "The Tribe": The Wordlessness of Samuel Beckett. In Burkman, & K. Burkman, Myth and Ritual in the Plays of Samuel Beckett (p. 60). London and Toronto: Fairleigh Dickson University Press.
Morrison, C. (2008). Meat, Bones, and Laughter Without Words. Theatre Symposium, 89-102.
Porter, J. (2010). Samuel Beckett and the Radiophonic Body: Beckett and the BBC. Modern Drama, 53(4), pp. 431-446.
Werner, Craig, Thomas J. Taylor and Robert McClenaghan. Critical Survey of Drama, Second Revised Edition: James Baldwin. April 2003. .
words so that the sound of the play complements its expression of emotions and ideas. This essay
Murphy, B. & Shirley J. The Literary Encyclopedia. [nl], August 31, 2004. Available at: http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2326. Access on: 22 Aug 2010.
Paley, Grace. "Samuel." Literature for Composition: Essay, Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 5th ed. Ed. Sylvan Barnet. New York: Longman, 2001. 190-192
Danson, Lawrence. "Tragic Alphabet." Modern Critical Interpretations: Hamlet. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York City: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. 65-86
Alan Bennett presents his characters in Talking Heads by writing the plays in the form of monologue. By employing this technique he has managed to create a rich and detailed World in which his stories unfold but, he only allows us to see it through the eyes of a single narrator. When reading a play that is presented in this manner it is possible to lose sight of the fact that you are only getting one person’s version of events and you may start to believe that you are having conversations reported to you verbatim. This is a clever mechanism because the narrators can often be unreliable and lead the reader to form opinions and draw conclusions that quite often turn out to be unfounded and false. The term “Talking heads is a synonym in television for boredom” (Bennett, 2007, p, 10) yet, these talking heads are certainly not boring, the settings may be drab and ordinary, the characters are not exciting or inspiring yet, the gossipy way in which the stories are told hooks the reader in. Fitting neatly into the genre of tragicomedy it is perhaps fitting that the ‘tragic’ comes before the ‘comedy’, certainly the dramatist infuses the plays with a rich dose of humour but the melancholy subject matter and the often quite sad and lonely characters always counter balances the laughs with a tinge of sadness.
Danson, Lawrence. "Tragic Alphabet." Modern Critical Interpretations: Hamlet. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York City: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. 65-86
...ne else in the play the power of language to alter reality, and the issues of conscious or unconscious deceit.
Danson, Lawrence. "Tragic Alphabet." Modern Critical Interpretations: Hamlet. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York City: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. 65-86
Shakespeare, William. "Othello." Literature: The Human Experience. Abcarian, Robert and Marvin Klotz, eds. Bedford/St. Martins: New York, 2002. 1134-1235.
Described as an “image-based play” that “harmonizes” the usage of physical acting, light, and sound, Yang’s Hamlet aims to limit the usage of dialogue, and to instead focus heavily on symbolism and sensory experiences (OzAsia, 2). This is evident in the artistic design of the production – from the barren stage and the simple and dull costumes, to the exaggerated actions and expression of the actors and the constant rhythmic beating of the drums. The play is filled with a sense of urgency, desolation, and violence, reflecting of the raw emotional state of the characters – a world that is harsh and devoid of warmth. This contrasts starkly with the staging of the shamanist rituals, which while simple, seems to be filled with life and elements of nature – from the bed of rice that surrounds the stage, the usage of water and candles, to the elaborate and colorful traditional costumes. This contrast supports Yang’s production concept: Shamanist rituals as a constant source of warmth and solace, unaffected by however grim or gray the world becomes. It represents the only path characters of the play can regain their harmony in a discordant world, whether they are in emotional anguish, on their deathbeds, or even after
Samuel Beckett’s Endgame is a complex analysis of politics in a seemingly apolitical and empty world. As Hamm and Clov inhabit the aftermath of Marxism, they display characteristics of the bourgeoisie and proletariat respectively, but only retain them so they can define themselves as something. The work implicitly argues- through the setting, and by defining Hamm and Clov as the bourgeoisie and proletariat- that political platforms are simply human rationalizations in futile opposition to a meaningless world, pointing towards Beckett’s ideological message of existential nihilism.
Evans, G. Blackemore. "Macbeth." In The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blackemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mufflin Company. 1974: 1307- 1311
For Eugene O’Neill, there is only one real subject for drama: The subject here is the same ancient one that always and always will be the one subject for drama, and that is man’s struggle with his own fate. The struggle used to be with the gods, but it is now with himself, his own past. Implicit in this statement are a number of O’Neill’s fundamental principles in this play and his own life. O’Neill embeds principles of Greek tragedy within a naturalistic play and so fully realizes his lifelong goal of dramatizing “man and this struggle with … himself, his own past” (Schroeder 30). In this play it is, indeed, the “struggle” to understand the formative past that s...
Hosseini, Seyed Mohammad. “The Postmodernist Rendition of Myth in the Selected Plays of Sam Shepard.”International Journal of Humanities and Social Science.Vol.2.2012:246-254.