Evaluating Samuel Beckett's Visual Stage Language

1 Evaluating Samuel Beckett’s visual stage language: viewing the aesthetic of failure through the lens of visual art By Stephen John TIPPETT Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of PhD in Drama Kingston University, London June 2020 2 Abstract This thesis proposes that Beckett’s engagement with art enabled him to develop a visual stage language through images which fed into his staging and through an understanding of the principles and elements of art. Therefore using the lens of visual art enables us to focus on the staging of Beckett’s plays as evidence of him experimenting with new visual forms for failure. An extensive use of comparisons with modern art and the Old Masters builds on current scholarship, introducing fresh insights. I propose the concept of subversion as an element of Beckett’s minimalism as a result of investigating the differences between Old Master paintings and his visual stage language. This systematic and wide-ranging investigation introduces many examples of how Beckett used the components of the mise-en-scène, such as lighting, costume, make-up, movement and gesture to create a visual aesthetic of failure. Use is made of a broad range of material including Beckett’s production notebooks and records from actors, directors and designers. Beckett’s writings on art emphasised the failure of representation and the need to show failure in the work itself. The visual elements I include under the aesthetic of failure are: abstraction, failed figure, figure in the stage construct, fragmentation, grotesque, liminality, minimalism and repetition. Merleau-Ponty’s grounding of perception in the body’s experience of its world and his linking this to visual art is used to throw light on aspects of Beckett’s problematization of embodiment. This thesis demonstrates that Beckett’s theatrical experimentation created a visual body of work: it aims to recalibrate the relative importance of the visual versus the spoken text, and therefore promote further scholarly debate. 3 Contents Abstract 2 Table of Contents 3 Acknowledgements 9 1. Introduction 10 1.1 Methodological approach 10 Visual art 10 Plays chosen 13 1.2 Definition of terms 14 Visual stage language 14 Aesthetic of failure 15 Abstraction 17 Failed figure 18 Figure in the stage construct 18 Fragmentation 19 Grotesque 20 Liminality 21 Minimalism 22 Repetition 23 1.3 Critical theorists’ framework 24 Merleau-Ponty 24 Derrida 27 4 2. Literature review 30 Introduction 30 2.1 Visual art links to visual stage language 31 James Knowlson 31 Mark Nixon 33 Enoch Brater 34 David Lloyd 35 2.2 The aesthetic of failure – art criticism 37 Hugh Kenner and Ruby Cohn 37 Lois Oppenheim 38 Ulrika Maude 39 Conor Carville 40 2.3 Questioning embodiment 41 Hugh Kenner 41 Ulrika Maude 41 Anna McMullan 42 Stanton B. Garner 42 Steven Connor 43 Trish McTighe 44 2.4 Representation/presentation on stage 45 Anna McMullan 45 Ruby Cohn and Enoch Brater 46 Lois Oppenheim 46 2.5 Visual stage language – minimalism 47 Martin Esslin 47 Ruby Cohn 48 Rosemary Pountney 48 Stanley Gontarski 49 Enoch Brater 49 Robert Reginio and Sarah Garland 50 2.6 Theatre context 51 Beckett’s production material 52 Dougald McMillan and Martha Fehsenfeld 52 James Knowlson 53 5 Ruby Cohn 54 Jonathan Kalb 54 Stanley Gontarski 55 Anna McMullan 56 3. Visual stage language: making failure visible 58 3.1 Engagement with art – art criticism 58 ‘Duthuit Dialogues’ 58 Power of the visual 59 Cézanne and alienation 61 3.2 Modern art and subverting the Old Masters 63 Jack B. Yeats – the “inhumanly inorganic” 63 Subversion of the Old Masters 65 3.3 Rockaby and Piece of Monologue 67 Abstract and figurative 67 Rockaby 68 Piece of Monologue 69 3.4 Not I and the “broken form” 71 Revealing impediments 71 Not I 72 4. Figure in the stage construct: the interlocking relationship 77 4.1 Endgame 77 Sepulchre and skull 77 Minimalist construction 79 Cold extermination 81 6 Confined by the game 83 4.2 Happy Days 85 Grotesque fusion figure 85 Decentring the protagonist 86 Concealing and revealing mound 87 Winnie’s possessions 88 4.3 Catastrophe 91 Mute witness 91 Enduring monument 92 Embodying dissent 93 4.4 Come and Go 96 Stylised movement wrapped in stillness 96 Three haunted figures 97 Hand gesture 99 Puppets and automata 100 5. Movement, gesture and stillness 102 5.1 Act without Words 1 / Act without Words 2 102 Act without Words 1 – figure in a pitiless arena 103 Act without Words 1 – thwarting of purposeful activity 104 Act without Words 2 – repetitive frieze 105 Act without Words 2 – the function of the goad 107 5.2 Footfalls 109 Walking the narrow strip of light 109 7 Debilitated movement 110 Shaping the posture 112 5.3 Waiting for Godot 114 Abstract lines 114 Vladimir and Estragon 116 Caught in the repetitive cycle 118 The ‘heap’ scene: cross and circle 119 Lucky as composite image 121 5.4 Quad 122 Mathematical patterning 122 Geometric melancholia 125 Avoiding the centre 127 6. Light/dark and the monotone spectrum 129 6.1. Play 129 Vast darkness 129 Interrogating spotlight 130 Chiaroscuro 132 Images of mortality 133 6.2. Krapp’s Last Tape 135 Zones of light in the dark 135 Krapp’s decay 138 Organic/inorganic polarity 139 8 6.3 That Time 141 Engulfing darkness 141 Twilight: liminality of grey 142 Decapitated head 143 Death mask 144 6.4 Ohio Impromptu 145 Reader and Listener 145 Internal world of consciousness 147 Bookends: the split figure 148 Failed encounter 150 7. Conclusion 152 7.1 Mise-en-scène into visual stage language 152 7.2 Evaluating the visual stage language through art 153 7.3 Recommendations for further research 154 Bibliography 157 Appendices 172 Time Line 172 Alphabetical listing of art works 182 9 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Dr Jim Reynolds for his support, criticism and encouragement. Thanks are also due to others at Kingston University, including the late Dr Steve Knapper and Professor Colin Chambers, who first started me off on my research studies. Jackie Smart responded enthusiastically to my teaching sessions on Beckett and visual art, which gave added encouragement. Thanks also to Penny Tribe in the student office. This is dedicated to my wife, Louise Bouvier Tippett, who has inspired me since day one. NOTE For consistency all productions are cited using the English names of the plays. Due to copyright restrictions art works used are not reproduced in this thesis: website links to view the art works online are provided in the appendix. 10 Chapter One Introduction In this thesis I explore what I term Samuel Beckett’s visual stage language as a series of experiments in his drama for finding a new visual form for failure. In this examination I am led by the plays themselves, which comprise iconic visual stage images, distinctive for each work, but which taken together can be seen to offer a recognisable body of work. I argue that it was Beckett’s engagement with art, a visual language that uses colour, texture, line, and so on to communicate ideas and feelings that led to him thinking in visual terms for his staged works. This introduction lays out my methodological approach; definition of key terms; and critical theorists’ concepts which feature in my analysis. This introductory chapter is followed by: Chapter Two, a literature review; Chapter Three, a discussion of his engagement with art and his art criticism and an exploration of the links between the visual stage language and art, with four case studies; Chapters Four, Five and Six analyse in greater detail four plays each, focusing on figure in the stage construct; movement, gesture and stillness; and light and dark. The concluding Chapter Seven is followed by my Bibliography; the Appendix comprises a Timeline showing Beckett’s engagement with art and an alphabetical listing of the artwork used in the thesis, with web links. 1.1 Methodological approach This thesis is focussed on the particular way Beckett conceived of his mise-en-scène and how his engagement with art was instrumental in him building a visual stage language from the theatrical components available. My research mines Beckett’s texts, Theatrical Notebooks and records from his collaborators and from other scholars to argue that Beckett sought to implement an aesthetic of failure on stage in visual terms. The approach which follows from this task I set myself means that the investigation of other dramaturgies is outside the remit of my thesis. Also I do not cover the spoken text, which means not analysing images represented through the words: in considering the visual stage language separately I aim to highlight how Beckett creates a visual body of work, although this is not to deny that Beckett of course created the spoken and visual to interact. Visual art My methodological approach is based on the proposition that using the lens of visual art will allow us to focus on the visual stage language. This is based on the idea that Beckett’s immersion in visual 11 art provided images which fed into his theatrical staging. In addition, I go beyond this to argue that he developed a capacity to understand the principles and elements of art, and therefore to implement a visual language in the different setting of the theatre. Building on other scholars’ insights and based on my own observations I have followed a rich seam of art for an analysis of the visual stage language, for example linking Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro painting Supper at Emmaus (1601) with the seated figures in Ohio Impromptu (1981) and Gerard Richter’s (born 1932) Grey (Untitled) (1968) with Godot (1953).

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