The Staged Painting of Samuel Beckett
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THE STAGED PAINTING OF SAMUEL BECKETT Dario Del Degan A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Centre for Study of Drama University of Toronto © Copyright by Dario Del Degan, 2007 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de ('edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington OttawaONK1A0N4 OttawaONK1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-55702-0 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-55702-0 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. 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While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. 1*1 Canada THE STAGED PAINTING OF SAMUEL BECKETT Dario Del Degan Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Centre for Study of Drama University of Toronto 2007 ABSTRACT This thesis examines the influence of visual art on Samuel Beckett's stage plays. Recent scholarship on the topic confirms the importance of painting on his theatre. This study contributes to the field by examining the ways select paintings directly inspired Beckett's theatrical development. It draws on the history of painting and visual art theory, in combination with developments in theatre during his lifetime, to contextualize and illustrate the creation of his staged painting. Chapter one establishes the origins of the topic and presents the result of Beckett's theatrical vision as a guiding image. It then positions this study within the critical discourse between the identification of the painterly influence on Beckett and its phenomenological result by developing and analyzing the visual factors that influenced his approach, conceptualization, realization, and reception of his plays. The remainder of the chapter discusses how the ineffable is confronted by transforming the word into visual language. Chapter two examines Beckett's artistic shift from writing prose, poetry, and criticism to his entrance on the stage. The differences between his first serious theatrical endeavour and his first produced play demonstrate that painting shaped his shift from narrative to portraiture. Chapter three analyzes the development of painterly techniques in his plays by his use of chiaroscuro on the stage. The incorporation of this technique results in a further reduction of movement and action, dialogue to monologue. Chapter four focuses on the transition from Beckett's middle to later plays, ii uncovering the fusion of them with elements of expressionism, montage, and the ubermarionette. Chapter five determines Beckett's attention to the primacy of perception as the foremost receptive act in his last stage plays. By transferring the heightened visual concentration of a single image from painting onto the stage, he provides the spectator with an opportunity to see beyond what is objectively presented. The visual arts inspired Beckett to transform the theatre into an art gallery, and the dramatic enterprise into a staged painting. in TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ii List of Figures v Chapter One: Towards a Literature of the Unword 1 Chapter Two: Drama in the Image 34 Chapter Three: Chiaroscuro on the Stage 112 Chapter Four: Images of the Void 162 Chapter Five: Beckett the Painter 219 Appendix 258 Notes 262 Works Cited 294 Figures 314 IV LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Antonello da Messina, Virgin of the Annunciation 314 Figure 2. Billie Whitelaw as May, Footfalls. Royal Court Theatre 314 Figure 3. Caspar David Friedrich, Two Men Contemplating the Moon 315 Figure 4. Sam Coppola and Joseph Ragno, Waiting for Godot. Theatre at St. Clements 315 Figure 5. Caspar David Friedrich, Evening on the Baltic Sea 316 Figure 6. Adam Elsheimer, Flight into Egypt... 316 Figure 7. Claes Berchem, Landscape with Crab Catchers by Moonlight 317 Figure 8. Adriaen Van Ostade, Landscape with an Old Oak 317 Figure 9. Kazimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition: White on White 318 Figure 10. Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Parable of the Blind. 318 Figure 11. Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Parable of the Blind (detail) 319 Figure 12. Frank Wood as Lucky, Waiting For Godot 319 Figure 13. Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The Land of Cockaigne 320 Figure 14. Waiting for Go dot, 2003. USC School of Theatre 320 Figure 15. Jean-Antoine Watteau. Embarkation for Cythera 321 Figure 16. Jean-Antoine Watteau. Italian Comedians 321 Figure 17. Jack B. Yeats, Two Travellers 322 Figure 18. Waiting for Godot. USC School of Theatre 322 Figure 19. Jack B. Yeats, The Top of the Tide 323 Figure 20. Jack B. Yeats, High Water - Spring Tide 323 Figure 21. Alberto Giacometti, Walking Man II 324 Figure 22. Georges Pierre, Alberto Giacometti with Samuel Beckett and Tree 325 Figure 23. Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of Jacob Trip 326 Figure 24. Michael Gambon as Hamm, Film Still: Beckett on Film, Endgame 326 v Figure 25. Rembrandt van Rijn, Old Man in an Armchair 327 Figure 26. Jan Vermeer, The Astronomer 328 Figure 27. Jan Vermeer, The Geographer 328 Figure 28. Rick Cluchey, Krapp's Last Tape. Loyola Marymount University Theatre 329 Figure 29. Rembrandt van Rijn, The Money Changer 330 Figure 30. John Hurt as Krapp, Krapp's Last Tape. Gate Theatre 330 Figure 31. Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, Film Still: Un chien andalou 331 Figure 32. Madeleine Renaud as Winnie, Happy Days. Theatre du Rond-Point 331 Figure 33. Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory 332 Figure 34. Rene Magritte, The Betrayal of Images 332 Figure 35. Emil Nolde, Christ Among the Children 333 Figure 36. Edvard Munch, The Scream 333 Figure 37. Sergei M. Eisenstein, Film Still: Battleship Potemkin 334 Figure 38. Sergei M. Eisenstein, Film Still: Battleship Potemkin 334 Figure 39. Sergei M. Eisenstein, Film Still: Battleship Potemkin 335 Figure 40. Sergei M. Eisenstein, Film Still: Battleship Potemkin 335 Figure 41. Emil Nolde, Prophet 336 Figure 42. Play. Maryland Stage Company 336 Figure 43. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Two Women in the Street 337 Figure 44. Come and Go. Gate Theatre 337 Figure 45. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Berlin Street Scene 338 Figure 46. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, The Decapitation of Saint John the Baptist... .339 Figure 47. Billie Whitelaw as Mouth, Film Still: Beckett on Film, Not I. 339 Figure 48. William Blake, Engraving from the Book of Job 340 Figure 49. Niall Buggy as Listener, Film Still: Beckett on Film, That Time 340 vi Figure 50. Oskar Kokoschka, Portrait of Professor Auguste Forel 341 Figure 51. James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in Gray and Black No. 1 342 Figure 52. Penelope Wilton as W, Flim Still: Beckett on Film, Rockaby 342 Figure 53. Vincent Van Gogh, La Bergeuse 343 Figure 54. Kay Gallie as W, Rockaby. Arches Theatre 343 Figure 55. Rembrandt van Rijn, Margaretha de Geer 344 Figure 56. Gerard Terborch, A Group of Monks 345 Figure 57. Jeremy Irons, Flim Still: Beckett on Film, Ohio Impromptu 345 Figure 58. Albrecht Diirer, Virgin in Prayer 346 Figure 59. John Gielgud as Protagonist, Flim Still: Beckett on Film, Catastrophe 346 vn CHAPTER ONE: TOWARDS A LITERATURE OF THE UNWORD C: when you went in out of the rain always winter then always raining that time in the Portrait Gallery in off the street out of the cold and rain slipped in when no one was looking and through the rooms shivering and dripping till you found a seat marble slab and sat down to rest and dry off and on to hell out of there when was that - Samuel Beckett, That Time (CDW 388) §1: Preamble A new phase in the scholarship on the work of Samuel Beckett began in 1996 with James Knowlson's discovery that the visual arts held a prominent position in the artist's aesthetic development. Before the publication of Knowlson's authorized biography Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett, researchers had little recourse but to approach Beckett's work from multiple academic disciplines, substantiated with only a few biographical comments, an enormous volume of disparate and, in some cases suspect, critical analyses, in conjunction with the occasional authorial comment that had found its way to print. Beckett himself encouraged divergent interpretations of his works by refusing to explain the "underlying meaning" or motivation for any of them, claiming that they must stand on their own. The range of responses to his work suggests that it broaches universal concerns, realized through experimentation with structure and genre.