Tuesday 3 August 2010

Beckett reversed

since my MA thesis on him in 1971 and until his death in 1989, I used to see Samuel Beckett in my dreams. In one of those dreams, I asked him about his method of writing, and he told me that he used symmetry, and I asked him whether the element of reversal came in into his writing, and when he was about to answer, my wife stirred in bed and I woke up without knowing his answer, and I was so furious that I suppressed in my heart a cry like that of Tennessee Williams' Maggie the Cat, a cry, Maggie describes that everbody all over the Delta could hear. Now, basing on the element of reversal, I have some ideas more infuriating perhaps than JoAnne Akalaitis' memorable landmark 1984 Endgame production. I think of producing Happy Days in a reversed order, ie the play unfolds like this: Act 2 of the original play, Curtain, Act 1of the original play, Curtain, AND my Act 3: Dumb show with Winnie, liberated from the mound, doing a ballet dance to a bar from Beckett's favourite musician, Schubert. In keeping with Beckett's spirit, Winnie's liberation from the mound is the liberation brought about by death, and to enhance this concept, it would be perfect that the music bar should be Schubert's Death and the Maiden used by Beckett in another play. So my added Act 3 of Happy Days shall all be typically Beckettian, without causing any harm to the Beckettian spirit of the entire play

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