Samuel Beckett’s Dramaturgy Workshops
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 (Faculty of English)
between 3-5pm in Lent Term on the following dates:
Wednesday 15th January
Wednesday 29th January
Wednesday 5th February
Monday 17th February
Wednesday 26th February
Wednesday 4th March