Samuel Beckett’s Dramaturgy Workshops – January and February 2019

Samuel Beckett’s Dramaturgy Workshops

Call for Participants

Wednesdays 23 January, 1.30pm-3.30pm
Wednesday 30 January, 4pm-6pm
Wednesday 6 February, 1.30pm-3.30pm
Wednesday 13 February, 1.30pm-3.30pm
Wednesday 20 February, 1.30pm-3.30pm
Friday 22 February, 2pm-4pm.

 Judith E Wilson Drama Studio

I should prefer the text not to appear in any form before production and not in book form until I have seen some rehearsals in London. It can’t be definitive without actual work in the theatre.                       

                                                Samuel Beckett to Grove Press, May 18, 1961.

 

This series of workshops aims to examine the spatial and theatrical dynamics inscribed in Samuel Beckett’s play texts, and to explore the productive force of modernist anti-theatricality in the performance of his drama. It draws on extensive archival sources to consider Beckett’s own staging of the plays, while also engaging with the potentiality of Beckettian drama in different performance contexts.

In so doing, the workshops aim to explore the relation between Beckett’s texts, his theatrical notebooks, and the staging of his plays, and to reflect on the degree to which his meticulous stage directions inscribe a dramatic relation to the theatre space that influenced post-Beckettian playwrights.

These workshops thus give students the opportunity to spend time with Beckett’s theatre texts and notebooks in a drama studio, thinking about the space and structure of performance. I therefore encourage anyone taking courses in drama, theatre, and performance to participate in this series.

The workshops will be held in the Judith E. Wilson drama studio in the Faculty of English every Wednesday in Lent term, starting on the 23rd January, and last 2 hours. If you would like to participate in this series, please send an email to: jdm207@cam.ac.uk. There are only twenty places available on the workshops, so participants shall be selected on a first come, first served basis.