Krapp’s Last Tape

Beckett takes this in hand all the way, every step of the way, every moment, till it’s as hard as chrysolite.

This is well for many a critical misunderstanding.

For it’s Krapp in the toils and not some theory about human life and understanding, that sort of thing.

Krapp is so much more interesting, as artists are, than anything you can say about them.

The beauty and precision of the performance are extremely valuable, the close abstraction of the set omits all superfluities, Rick Cluchey is almost the ideal Krapp in his constant attention to the role, and the mise en scène leaves no doubt.

En attendant Godot

Beckett’s direction is miraculously realized, au naturel, there is no difficulty.

The thing plays itself, tout court, and is evidently Jean Gabin and Marcel Dalio in Renoir’s La Grande illusion.

No diagrams, a few instructions, carefully observed, the apparatus, the mechanism of translation quite forgotten.

Waiting for Godot

Beckett’s direction takes in hand both speech and action, he is John Barrymore chalking the stage and registering dialogue with a feather quill, and out of this two things emerge quite clearly, both already noted otherwhere. It is God-o waited for, and by Laurel and Hardy (Moffat and Elcar as Estragon and Vladimir). Keaton as Lucky, perhaps, Chaplin as Pozzo.

The appointment is kept, the vision of mastery lost as granted, critics and morpions prevail, and yet there is no definitive observance, there is the boy each time to cancel the engagement and promise another time.

Asmus directs his camera unfailingly atop the diagrams.

Eh Joe

Hell hath no fury like the one who married better, after all, and she upholds the example of a suicide.

Arranged by Beckett, filmed by Asmus.

Footfalls

Beckett’s very precise staging (see below), with Billie Whitelaw.

Rockaby

The direction is very severe, a rocking chair between dark and light, the face.

It might be Emily Dickinson on the “admiring bog”, or Murphy tied down to achieve his satori.

Footfalls

Beckett’s gloss on L’Année dernière à Marienbad, a masterful performance by the critics being wanted long enough.

From a production at the Gate Theatre.