Waiting for Godot brought in enough money to enable Beckett to buy himself a Paris flat and a small house in the country where he did much of his work. Other than simple everyday needs, his expenditure on himself stopped there. His French publisher was often in financial difficulties and Beckett not only forewent royalties but used revenue from performances to get him out of trouble. He did the same for no-one knows how many others. Anyone in need went to Beckett and he would borrow to lend money that was never returned. When he won the Nobel Prize in 1969 and a large sum of money came to him, he told me that he did not feel he deserved it and could I give him a list of needy writers he could help. By the time he received my list it was all gone. Others had come to him, often asking for as large a sum as they dared. When he died there was nothing in the bank, money was owed in tax and his heirs had to wait for it to be paid before they received any benefit.
from an article by John Calder

POZZO:
(suddenly furious.) Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It’s abominable! When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we’ll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you? (Calmer.) They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more.

We were at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds to see their production of Waiting for Godot with Ian Brown directing the Talawa Theatre Company‘s all Black cast.

The play has been produced with an all-Black cast several times before, though this is the first time in the UK. The text, however, is so strong and so insistent that before ten minutes of the first act had passed the skin colour of the players had become insignificant. The main duo chatter away in authentic Carribean accents, but again, this does not affect the audiences interpretation of the play. I have seen productions with Irish, Scottish, French, American and English accents, but I can’t honestly claim that any of these have improved my enjoyment or understanding of the text,

Nevertheless, the cast is a strong one and they push the play forward with tremendous energy and skill. If I had to single out a performance to tip the scales, it would be Guy Burgess’s portrayal of Lucky. But this is to take nothing away from the other players and the director, all of whom should be rightfully proud of their achievement.

This production of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot reminded me of Beckett’s 1930 essay on Proust, where he demonstrates how time, habit, memory and salvation permeate À la recherche du temps perdu. The passing of time is a constant reminder of death, and as a way of by-passing this, Proust’s characters fall into everyday habits, repetition, boredom, distractions. This in turn can lead to the awakening of involuntary memory, and in that moment, the boredom of living is replaced by the suffering of being. Involuntary memory undoes time and habit. This is a kind of salvation.

Beckett is not only concerned with Proust, he is primarily concerned with his own influences and preoccupations and to work out an aesthetic manifesto on which to base his future preoccupations.

Time, habit, and memory are the concepts which underline Waiting for Godot, and there are multiple references to them in the play.

The other thing that came to mind while watching the performance was the recollection that Tennessee Williams called The Glass Menagerie a ‘memory play.’ Menagerie was written eight years before Godot and concentrates on a series of abandonments, but it also has everyone in the cast and the audience ‘waiting’, in this case for a gentleman caller. Perhaps Godot is also a ‘memory’ play in the same sense?

I don’t know who Godot is. I don’t even know (above all don’t know) if he exists. And I don’t know if they believe in him or not – those two who are waiting for him. The other two who pass by towards the end of each of the two acts, that must be to break up the monotony. All I knew I showed. It’s not much, but it’s enough for me, by a wide margin. I’ll even say that I would have been satisfied with less. As for wanting to find in all that a broader, loftier meaning to carry away from the performance, along with the program and the Eskimo pie, I cannot see the point of it. But it must be possible … Estragon, Vladimir, Pozzo, Lucky, their time and their space, I was able to know them a little, but far from the need to understand. Maybe they owe you explanations. Let them supply it. Without me. They and I are through with each other.
Samuel Beckett.

The play continues at the West Yorkshire Playhouse until the 25th February, then goes on tour to Albany Deptford London, Old Rep Birmingham, Theatre Royal Winchester and New Wolsey Ipswich.

Reviews of previous productions of this play are available here and here.

The main thing in life is to fill one’s belly. Peer Gynt.

With Peer Gynt things are progressing very slowly and finishing in the autumn is out of the question. It is a terribly intractable subject, except in some places, such as where Solveig sings, which I have already completed. And then I have produced something for the “Hall of the mountain king“, which I literally cannot stand to listen to, it rings so of cow dung, of Norwegian-Norwegian-ness, and to thyself be enough-ness! Edvard Grieg.

Henrik Ibsen left Norway, for what he thought would be permanent exile, in the spring of 1864. In or near Rome he wrote Brand and published it in 1866. He then wandered south to Ischia and Sorrento where he worked on Peer Gynt, which was finally published in Copenhagen in 1867. He was thirty-eight years old and would not return to Norway for twenty-seven years.

Ibsen’s Norway consists mainly of a stuffy, provincial middle-class, redeemed by a smattering of upright, sometimes fiery individuals of real initiative and courage. But Peer Gynt is something else. Derived from Norwegian folk-lore, he is a single typical national type; all the defects Ibsen saw in his fellow countrymen are to be found in Peer. He is at most half-hearted about life, egotistical and characterless. He finds it impossible to commit himself to anything and seemingly drifts from one situation to another without rhyme or reason. He is a man without principle; he is mediocre and morally shabby.

But at the same time Peer Gynt is also a representative of mankind. Like King Lear, he carries within himself something of all of us. He has that anarchic trait which allows us to spin out of control, to become one with our imagination, to let go of all the constraints that imprison our spirit.

Edvard Munch's design for the Peer Gynt Playbill

Marilyn Munroe at the Actor's Studio - Picture by Ray Schatt

Marilyn Munroe was deeply concerned with her identity throughout her life. Babtised as Norma Jeane Baker and abandoned by her mother, she spent much of her childhood in foster homes. As a high profile actress people frequently confused her image with her true self. These factors combined with her quest for an inner peace hint at an answer to the attraction of Strasberg’s teachings.

Strasberg worked with all the heavies, James Dean, Paul Newman, Montgomery Clift, Robert De Niro, Steve McQueen, Jane Fonda, and Al Pacino. But he maintained that the two greatest were Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe.

At this time she also entered analysis but never fully managed to overcome her inner battle; she regarded “Marilyn Monroe” and her true self as two different entities.

On her death Marilyn Monroe willed the control of 75% of her estate to Lee Strasberg, including the licensing of her image, as gratitude for his mentorship and kindness.

Others who have been associated with the Actors Studio include Edward Albee, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Hopper, Sidney Lumet, Norman Mailer, Steve McQueen, Sean Penn, Sidney Poitier, Tennessee Williams and Shelley Winters.

“The truth concerning the passions, verisimilitude in the feelings experienced in the given circumstances, that is what our intelligence demands of a dramatist.”
Pushkin’s aphorism

“Create your own method. Don’t depend slavishly on mine. Make up something that will work for you! But keep breaking traditions, I beg you.” Konstantin Stanislavsky

There is an interesting two-part documentary on the relationship between Munroe and Strasberg, which is well worth a few minutes of your time:

and

Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man. Mercutio.

Jonjo O'Neill as Mercutio

In the original story, the lovers’ affair lasted for several months. But Shakespeare compressed the plot into a period of less than four days. The action opens on Sunday morning and ends at dawn on the following Thursday. Everything happens in a flash, the action takes place in an incandescent moment. On her balcony, the fourteen-year-old Juliet (Mariah Gale) tries to explain:

It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say ‘It lightens.’

We were at Newcastle’s Theatre Royal to see the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Romeo and Juliet, directed by Rupert Goold.

A really excellent production in which the love and affection between the two principles (especially Sam Troughton’s Romeo) is never in doubt. And although they are progressively marginalized and isolated by the actions of their parents and elders, it is always obvious that the play is theirs, an anthem for doomed youth.

Mariah Gale plays Juliet as a sulking adolescent, gradually adding gravitas as the events of the play unfold.

Both leads are amply supported by the presence of Noma Dumezweni in her role as Juliet’s nurse. I’ve never seen this part done better.

But the thunder of the performance is stolen by Jonjo O’Neill as Romeo’s friend, Mercutio. After he is killed by Juliet’s hot-tempered cousin, Tybalt, much of the wit and pace and imagination of the play is lost. But don’t let this put you off, the production is worth seeing for the part of Mercutio alone.

During the eighteenth century Shakespeare’s play was ‘improved’ by the addition of extra dialogue. A new scene was incorporated in which Juliet wakes from her trance before Romeo has begun to feel the effects of his own poison. They could therefore converse and take their eternal farewell. Thus was the play dragged into the mire of sentiment for over a hundred years.

But although this production is not devoid of laughs, it steers well clear of sentiment, and allows us to leave the theatre with a real feeling for the tragedy of the two lovers.

“I see two husbands, or mine eyes deceive me…”

We were at the Royal Exchange in Manchester to see Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors directed by Roxana Silbert.

Some years ago, Egeon, his wife Aemilia, their twin sons and twin servants were shipwrecked. Egeon, one son and one servant were separated from the rest and have travelled the world in search of their other halves ever since. Now they meet again, initially with potentially drastic consequences.

This is a short play with a young and enthusiastic cast, packed with sparkling and frothy humour, both physical and verbal, and is hugely enjoyable.

Of particular note are the costumes, designed especially for this production and reminiscent of Vivian Westwood and Steve McQueen. And for me, the excellent performances were capped by that of Owain Arthur as the servant Dromio of Ephesus. But this is to take nothing away from the rest of the cast.

Later we went to the excellent Tai Wu restaurant in Oxford Street, and enjoyed some Cantonese food. And even though the evening had to end up in the eerily silent and abandoned John Lennon airport at 2.30 am, the enthusiasm and vivacity of the play continued to sustain.

The Comedy of Errors will continue until the 8th May.

I’ve made a great discovery. . . and I’ll tell you what it is: the strongest person in the world is the one who stands alone
Dr. Tomas Stockmann.

Henrik Ibsen’s opening play at the newly refurbished Sheffield Crucible, is An Enemy of the People, with Anthony Sher in the role of Dr Stockmann.

It’s a disturbing drama, constituting an attack on democracy and the theory of majority rule, a position with which Ibsen himself had some sympathy.

Stockman, a scientist and an idealist, quite unworldly in this production, almost a natural innocent, discovers that the waters of his Spa town are polluted and poisonous. He immediately wants to go public with this news, shut the Spa down and, at whatever expense, cleanse and reroute the water. But his brother, the Mayor, suppresses the report. The bureaucrats, the local small businessmen’s association, the town newspaper and eventually the workers of the town, turn on Stockman, his family and his friends, and reduce them to penury.

The play works as a forum for ideas. For a modern audience to empathize with Stockmann entirely is almost impossible. He does, of course, stand for truth against the suppression and lies of his brother and the other organs of the democratic process, but he does not understand the need to educate his audience and become instead self-righteous and arrogant and a chilling and contemptuous social darwinist in his remarks about “disgusting, mangy, vulgar mongrels” whose brains don’t develop in the same manner as gently reared pedigree dogs.

On the other hand his sense that truth, any truth, has a limited lifetime, and that time always brings us round to the realisation that what was once true has now become untrue, is never less than fascinating.

And his fear that the suppression of material facts and the acceptance of political lies will lead, inevitably, to a kind of spiritual corruption and decay of society, is a companion to each of us in the twenty-first century.

A disturbing play, then; one that still, in our own time, offers an audience no place to hide.

This production, directed by Daniel Evans, with Antony Sher as Dr Stockmann, in a new version by Christopher Hampton, runs until the 20th March.

If you go out and fight for freedom you should never do so in your best trousers.
Dr. Tomas Stockmann.