Waiting for Godot


Book Description

From an inauspicious beginning at the tiny Left Bank Theatre de Babylone in 1953, followed by bewilderment among American and British audiences, Waiting for Godot has become of the most important and enigmatic plays of the past fifty years and a cornerstone of twentieth-century drama. As Clive Barnes wrote, “Time catches up with genius … Waiting for Godot is one of the masterpieces of the century.” The story revolves around two seemingly homeless men waiting for someone—or something—named Godot. Vladimir and Estragon wait near a tree, inhabiting a drama spun of their own consciousness. The result is a comical wordplay of poetry, dreamscapes, and nonsense, which has been interpreted as mankind’s inexhaustible search for meaning. Beckett’s language pioneered an expressionistic minimalism that captured the existential post-World War II Europe. His play remains one of the most magical and beautiful allegories of our time.




Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot


Book Description

"An impressively complete survey of the play in its cultural, theatrical, historical and political contexts." - David Bradby, co-editor of Contemporary Theatre Review Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot is not only an indisputably important and influential dramatic text -it is also one of the most significant western cultural landmarks of the twentieth century. Originally written in French, the play first amazed and appalled Parisian theatre-goers and critics before receiving a harshly dismissive initial critical response in Britain in 1955. Its influence since then on the international stage has been significant, impacting on generations of actors, directors and audiences.




Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot


Book Description

No modern play in the western dramatic tradition has provoked as much controversy or generated as much diversity of opinion as Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. Since its initial production in 1953, it has revolutionized the stage through its existentialism and apparent rejection of plot. This book is a valuable introduction to the play. It begins with a summary of the play and its origins and editions. It then explores the play's meaning and the historical and intellectual contexts informing Beckett's work. The book then examines Beckett's dramatic art and gives full coverage of the play's performance history. A bibliographical essay surveys the most important critical studies.




Beckett: Waiting for Godot


Book Description

This volume offers a comprehensive critical study of Samuel Beckett's first and most renowned dramatic work, Waiting for Godot, which has become one of the most frequently discussed, and influential plays in the history of the theatre. Lawrence Graver discusses the play's background and provides a detailed analysis of its originality and distinction as a landmark of modern theatrical art. He reviews some of the differences between Beckett's original French version and his English translation.




Instructions for a Heatwave


Book Description

From the award-winning author of Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait: a sweeping family drama where a father's disappearance forces three adult siblings to come together and confront what they really know about their past. London, 1976. In the thick of a record-breaking heatwave, Gretta Riordan's newly-retired husband has cleaned out his bank account and vanished. Now, for the first time in years, the three Riordan children are converging on their childhood home: Michael Francis, a history teacher whose marriage is failing; Monica, with two stepdaughters who despise her and an ugly secret that has driven a wedge between her and the little sister she once adored; and Aoife (pronounced EE-fah), the youngest, whose new life in Manhattan is elaborately arranged to conceal her illiteracy. As the siblings track down clues to their father's disappearance, they also navigate rocky pasts and long-held secrets. Their search ultimately brings them to their ancestral village in Ireland, where the truth of their family's past is revealed. Wise, lyrical, instantly engrossing, Instructions for a Heatwave is a richly satisfying page-turner from a writer of exceptional intelligence and grace.




Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett, New Edition


Book Description

Presents a series of critical essays discussing the structure, themes, and subject matter of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot.




Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd


Book Description

Fifty years after the publication of Martin Esslin's The Theatre of the Absurd , which suggests that 'absurd' plays purport the meaninglessness of life, this book uses the works of five major playwrights of the 1950s to provide a timely reassessment of one of the most important theatre 'movements' of the 20th century.




Christ's Wait for Godot


Book Description

Often bleak and blasphemous, Samuel Beckett's writing is not commonly considered a source of spiritual courage and theological depth, but "Christ's Wait for Godot" finds much to admire in Beckett's grey world. Stephen D. Morrison leverages his expertise in Jürgen Moltmann's theology to read Beckett with a theologian's eye and discover many surprising parallels. By also gleaning from the insights of Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and the mystical and apophatic traditions, Morrison arrives at a highly original reading of Beckett that is at once comforting and challenging. Most critics studying Beckett's religious themes fail to reckon with the strength of his spiritual sensibilities. But there is tremendous metaphysical depth to Beckett's obsession with suffering, protest, longing, and hope. Morrison strives to uncover new ways of reading Beckett's work by taking his spiritual sensibilities seriously and reading him theologically. The result is a book at once hopeful and honest. In the end, it is Beckett's humanity that impresses us the most. And in these uncertain times, we need writers who courageously wrestle with God, truth, and meaning.




The 100 Best Nonfiction Books of All Time


Book Description

Beginning in 1611 with the King James Bible and ending in 2014 with Elizabeth Kolbert's 'The Sixth Extinction', this extraordinary voyage through the written treasures of our culture examines universally-acclaimed classics such as Pepys' 'Diaries', Charles Darwin's 'The Origin of Species', Stephen Hawking's 'A Brief History of Time' and a whole host of additional works --




Watt


Book Description

In prose possessed of the radically stripped-down beauty and ferocious wit that characterize his work, this early novel by Nobel Prize winner Samuel Beckett recounts the grotesque and improbable adventures of a fantastically logical Irish servant and his master. Watt is a beautifully executed black comedy that, at its core, is rooted in the powerful and terrifying vision that made Beckett one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century.