Dr. Radoje V. Šoškić, Associate Professor at the University of Priština in Kosovska Mitrovica, is visiting the Open University of Cyprus, and more specifically the MA in Theatre Studies, under the Erasmus+ International Mobility Programme for an invited Teaching Assignment. The overall title of his course is “From Beckett to Hare: Mapping Modern British Theatre”.
The 1st Lecture held on March 11, 2024 was entitled “Introduction to Modern British Drama”. Dr Šoškić discussed a) Overview of Modern British Drama, b) Samuel Beckett’s theatre of the absurd
#ΑΠΚΥ #OpenUniversityCyprus #Theatre
The recording and um welcome our um speaker our Rasmus um guest for this entire week um Dr Radu soskic I hope I’m pronouncing your name right R yeah um okay welcome everybody um to this cycle uh of uh theater lectures uh online about theater H in fact the entire week will be um
Taken by wonderful lectures on different aspects of uh British theater uh as the title of this um series testifies from beot to hair mapping modern British theater um uh all carried out by Dr rosic uh who is who I’m going to introduce right now and um I must say it
Is a great pleasure to have um to have him here in Cyprus he’s physically present in Cyprus and in fact one of the lectures on Wednesday will be a hybrid one so those residing in Cyprus please feel free um to join us and those of you
Who don’t you can always join us online so uh a little um a little bit of a bu a few words about our speaker um Dr rosic is an associate professor of Modern English and American literature at the University of Pristina in kosova Micha I hope I’m pronouncing this right please
Correct me if I’m not he has received okay okay good don’t worry thank you um he has received his ba ma and PhD from the same University um since 2008 he has been teaching at the department of English language and literature faculty of philosophy where he serves as an
Associate professor his major areas of research include contemporary British and American literature postcolonial studies anthropology Western philosophy and mythology Dr sosage is the author of three scholarly editions dealing with postmodernism in American drama the figure of Harley Quinn and Shakespeare’s plays and the late plays of Arthur Miller and Steve tesich uh
Postmodernism in Arthur Miller’s Place har quen the world out of joint and Shakespeare the closing of the American mind in on the open roog by Steve tesich and Resurrection Blues by Arthur Miller as well as articles in peerreview journals um now his uh lecture today um
Is going to be um an overview of a modern British drama an introduction to Modern British drama that will um as far as I understand will include um a special focus on Samuel Becket theater of the Absurd there will be more lectures coming up um tomorrow um is is the lecture on
Harold Pinter comedies of menace to um tomorrow Tuesday at 8:00 again a lecture online um his Wednesday lecture is the hybrid lecture on David hair and political engagement in the theater and Thursday is um a lecture on political theater the political theater of Carl Churchill um that starts at 6:30
P.m. uh and runs until 8 and then again online and then his final um online lecture is on Friday which um focuses on Tom stoer as a postmodernist playwright so without further Ado um um again um I would like to extend uh our uh department and our
Faculties um thanks to Dr and you have the floor to yourself um uh please feel free um those of you who are uh attending to um just pose your questions at the end of uh the lecture you can use the microphones or you can um uh just
Ask your questions uh in the chat uh window that is uh available for you so um we are ready to start um R the floor is yours thank you arra for this wonderful speech and beautiful introduction good evening everyone and Welcome to our session on modern British theater and
Samuel becket’s renowned theater of the Absurd it’s a pleasure to have each of you here tonight as we embark on this in intellectual journey together tonight’s discussion will be an exploration into the complexities of modernist British theater a period marked by Innovation experimentation and the profound reimagining of theatrical conventions
We’ll delve into the avanguard movements that emerged during this era examining how they challenged traditional narratives and pushed the boundaries of Storytelling following our overview of modern British theater we’ll transition into the world of Samuel beckets theater of the Absurd as you know becket’s work is a testament to his existential
Exploration and his fascination with language and its limitations we’ll be discussing his place within the context of existentialism probing the themes of human existence absurdity and the inherent failure of language to fully communicate meaning in particular we’ll delve into becket’s notion that language is inherently ruptured from presence a
Concept which resonates deeply with the core logic of deconstruction additionally we’ll explore how Becket play illuminate the idea that word often fail to capture the true essence of reality leaving us grappling with the elusive nature of meaning should you have any questions feel free to ask me
Also should you need to take a short break during the lesson please let me know shall we start yes please we’re waiting after Shakespeare after the 17th century there were hardly any notable playright in England for nearly nearly three de centuries the 18th century saw the rise
Of the comedy of manners and sentimental comedy both have now become period pieces the 19th Century Theater was known as Boulevard theater which introduced melodrama a form that was to dominate theater in the 19th century melodrama in turn by popularizing departures from Neo classicism and capturing the interest of large
Audiences paved the way for romantic drama the Renaissance of British theater began in the early 20th century modern British drama consists of two major phases early 20th century drama the so-called pre-war drama and later 20th century drama the so-called postwar drama a minor phase can be seen in place
Written soon after World War II which ended in 1945 one of the distinguishing features of modern drama is is that it is a drama of ideas rather than action the dramatists are focused on making theater an expression of political social and metaphysical ideas that makes a theater experience both entertaining and instructive it
Will be no exaggeration to say that after the city of place for nearly three centuries the 20th century revved up British theater it is more of an intellectual drama than it ever was in the history of drama before the present age the early 20th century with its
Slogan make it new was mainly marked by rejection of the realism of the 19th century the idea of of introducing Innovations in theater prevailed in all European theaters these Innovations in the theater were similar to Innovations in the visual arts such as painting architecture and sculpture all of which
Had a singular focus of rebelling against realistic representation the theatrical experimentations especially in Europe gave fresh impetus to the development of theater after they set the tone and widened the theatrical vocabulary for all the innovations that followed instead of cluttering the stage with authentic realistic details the focus shifted to Simplicity in and
Austerity with a heightened expressiveness that could convey the true Spirit of a play rather than provide merely sup superficial dressing the actor was to be given center stage and all other detailed setting should not should not rob the actor of it of this focus it has to be just a
Suggestion of reality for example the German director Max Reinhardt rejecting the idea of one style demanded for modern plays a style that was realistic in feeling but that avoided the drab exactness of realism the many isms in painting like symbolism impressionism and and expressionism were also attempted in European theater let us now
Turn to Modern drama in Britain and Ireland where the emphasis was marginally different from the rest of European theater modern British drama spans the period from the end of the 19th century up to the present day the term modernist is generally applied to a group of early 20th century writers who
Rejected realism and traditional forms but British drama of the early 20 Century approximately from 1900s to 1950 turns away from the anti-realistic focus of the European experimental theater and presents realistic social drama modern British drama comprises comedies and poetic dramas during the first half of the century and the new
Theater known as the theater of the Absurd after 1950 the early influence on British drama came from Ireland when we speak about 20th century British theater we can trace its Origins to the Irish literary theater founded by the three most famous Irish dramatists William Butler Yates lady Gregory John
Millington sing their purpose was to provide a specifically Celtic and Irish theater to Stage the deeper emotions of Ireland to the Irish people the playwrights of the Irish literary theater that later came to be known as The Abbey theater was one of the key influences on British theater Revival
The major Irish playwrights were Sha Sha oy John mingon Singh like I mentioned William Butler Yates and to name a few in England the well-made play of the earlier era was replaced by a new theater with its appeal chiefly to the young audience who were politically and socially conscious that dramatic
Characters in their plays were primarily based on this young audience reflecting their ideas views cultures aspirations and attitudes the noteworthy dramatists were George Bernard Shaw Harley Granville Barker W Somerset mom and John goldworthy when we talk about talk about modern British drama of the early 20th century the first dramatist in this list
Is surely George Berner Shaw an Irish by birth but domiciled in Britain he used theater as a lively platform for the discussion of Social and philosophical issues and wrote plays that were relevant to his age Shaw is known for his wits and his plays can be best described as serious comedies some of
Shaw’s plays come under the rubric problem plays also known as commies of ideas and as thesis plays these plays are meant to bring life bring to life some contemporary controversy or social ills such as women’s rights unemployment Pino reform and class privilege Etc to stimulate thought and action in the audience
Problem plays usually take up an issue social or or political present the inherent problem in the issue and ends on an open note leaving it to the audience to find their own solution the first playright to present problem plays was from Europe the the Norwegian dramatist Henrik
Ibson with his Innovative epical play ad doll’s house it is a dramatic representation of serious familial and social conflicts and raises the issue of women’s rights for the first time patriarchal dominance was under scrutiny and gender conflict was brought onto the Open Stage Shaws Mrs Warren’s profession examines the attitudes towards
Prostitution in another of Shaw’s Place candid the dramatist raises the problem of marital bliss in the form of the protagonist wanting to remarry a young younger person after a contented life of about 10 years pigmalion which was later filmed as my fair lady has an open ending a flower girl educated and
Trained by an upper class gentleman is seen at the end wondering what her status would be as she can neither return as a flower girl or move into the aristocratic society that refuses to accept her as she hails from a workingclass milu it is left to the audience to recognize the problem and
Arrive at its own conclusion Man and Superman and back to Methuselah deal with the metaphysical concept of Life Force this life force concept of Burna Shaw contains the central idea that life is a vital force or impulse that strives to attain greater power of contemplation and self-realization in the process
Unlike drama having action as its mainstate man man and Superman does not have action but a long debate to discuss the problematic issue these plays were not written for the sake of theatricality or to create a beautiful dramatic piece but to direct public attention to social evils and
Misconceptions and what is more a problem play is not something merely diagnostic but also something therapeutic in other words it not only spells out the ills but also prescribes possible solutions that the audience will have to choose from Sha scoffed at the slogan arts for Arts sake he said
That for the sake of art he would not undertake the labor of writing even one sentence not to speak of a whole play thus the new theater of the first three decades took up social and political issues social and political issues I got lost a bit
Sorry and the tone of the place was both satirical and and rebellious apart from political and social themes Shaw’s Place were also philosophical trying to discuss The Who and why of human life and existence industrialization also had an impact on 20th century drama resulting in plays lamenting the
Alienation of humans in an increasingly mechanical World during the 1930s new genres in place of straightforward nationalism came up Noel cowards private lives is a return to the comedy of manners JB prisley explored cyclic concept of time in time and the conways Thomas Stern zelliot introduced
Verse drama and five of his plays found a modern idiom for the poetic drama in his verse play murder murder in the cathedral originally performed in Canterbury Cathedral Elliot makes a special case for poetic or verse drama Elliot claims that quote the greatest drama is poetic drama because poetry is
Language raised to its highest power and drama is that form of representation which allows greatest concentration of effect and when one fuses the two it counts for the greatest drama unquote verse drama is drama written in verse form to be spoken by the actor Elliott’s insistence that that if
Our verse is to have so wide a range that it can say anything that has to be said it follows that it will not be poetry all the time it will only be poetry when the dramatic situation has reached such a point of intensity that poetry becomes a natural
Utterance because then it is the only language in which the emotions can be expressed at all and this is one of the most important ideas regarding the unity of poetry and drama according to this view of poetic drama poetry exists as as latent and sleeping existence in
Drama in his essay a dialogue on dramatic poetry Elliot says that Pros drama emphasizes the ephemeral and superficial while verse drama expresses the permanent and Universal Elliot’s belief in the value of poetic drama is based on the ground that poetic drama is the fine resource which can express the permanent
Struggles and conflicts of human beings and can transcend the ephemeral and The Superficial now we’ll be talking about the theater of the absur now since it’s an important development in modern drama at the end of the two major world wars that accounted accounted for the deaths of millions in England in Europe an
Alarming trend of anxiety hopelessness and religious skepticism spread among Europeans faith in God along with the traditional belief in sin and Punishment came under question leading to an existential crisis and increased skepticism about the existence of a just and benevolent God the postwar world was caught between the old world that was
Dead and the new one yet to be born in the context of the two world wars that included Atomic Holocaust and Nazi acts of genocide divinely authenticated values become became suspect how is it that God or the divine power could not prevent the horror cruelty and inhumanity Unleashed on innocent men
Women and children in the absence of any meaningful and logical explanation of the night marage tragedy all around life seemed absolutely meaningless except to serve as a link between birth and death this was a baffling irresolvable question life to what purpose several European British and American Writers gave expression to the
Concept of the meaninglessness of life and their writings came under the rubric literature of the absur now the word absur in common parans denotes something utterly senseless something that defies logic and reason and is therefore laughably ridiculous hence the term absurd perfectly fitted the post-war state where life seemed bereft of all
Meaning and purpose the concept of the the Absurd was initiated by Albert moo in the myth of cipus through the term though the term itself was coined much later in 1961 by Martin esen to describe the works primarily of a number of European playwrights who wrote in the
1950s and 1960s and focused largely on the meaninglessness and purposelessness of existence these plays also High highlight ited the vacuity of words and actions in a universe that functioned on its own where human interference was irrelevant and inconsequential thus after the two World Wars human beings found themselves in a
World with no religion to believe in no faith to comfort them and faced the biggest existential crisis how to exist in a world where there is no certainty or predictability about the shape life would take in the future literature of the Absurd and in particular the theater
Of the Absurd gave expression to this feeling of loss La lack of purpose in life and absence of logic and reason in happenings over which one has no control Albert kamu from France Eugene ionesco from Romania Arthur adamov from Russia Samuel Becket who was an Irish by birth but who wrote
Initially from France before settling in England and Harold Pinter from England were the early contributors to the theater of the Absurd kamu perception of absurdity gave him an awareness of a burning and frigid now this is a quote of so his perception of absurdity gave him an awareness of
Quote a burning and frigid transparent and limited univers in which nothing is possible but everything is given and Beyond which all is collapse and nothingness unquote the plays under the rubric theater of the Absurd and in in particular those of Samuel Becket deal with the predicament
Of men and women in the universe settled with an existence that is out of harmony with their longing for logic and Order becket’s famous sentence sums up the modern writer’s predicament quote the expression that there is nothing to express nothing with which to express no power to express no
Desire to express together with a desire to express unquote nearly four centuries back Shakespeare had similarly written about the smallness of human beings against the vastness of the universe where the gods reign supreme quote as flies to want boys are we to the gods they kill
Us for their sport unquote it is clear that Becket statement is an extension of Shakespeare’s understanding of man’s smallness VAV the great power of the universe that is presided by an invisible superpower call it God or fate or destiny or simply godo as Becket terms it this power is unknown and
Incomprehensible as the human mind is limited in scope to understand the complexity of life that seems wired to a remote power hence the major theme of the Absurd drama revolves round we know nothing our words and actions mean nothing as the shape of things to come
Is hidden from us life moves on per perally through the birth that death cycle with neither a beginning nor an end in sight the cycle goes on unceasingly without any predictable pattern except that of a cyclical movement through birth and death one of the characters in waiting for gdau says
Quote nothing happens no one comes no one goes this is awful unquote so this is the new theater that discarded the well-made place which which uh followed the dramatic structure with the beginning middle and an end where the delineation of characters was done through action and words and the structure consisted of
Plot dialogue action Climax and Dan Numa with resolution the theater of the absur had no use for such a structure as the story line was not linear and there was neither a beginning nor an end the new plays were circular ending at the point at the point where they began it will
Not be far off the mark to say that these plays present not a story but a situation a daily occurrence of life one other Innovative aspect of the theater of the Absurd is the usage of words or dialogues despite their lack of potential to communicate nothingness these plays resort to
Minimal dialogues that are repetitive and employ non Secours and complement them with purpose purposeless uh actions meaningless actions and vacuous gestures to convey the futility of all put together the play’s action is not something that does not move the play forward since the play does not have a storyline no action
Can take it further all action is limited to Here and Now Becket employs the art of the grotesque that was prominent in ancient Italian comedies like the Comedia delte Ville Musical and cross talk he uses the grotesque to present the theme of a hostile force a hostile mechanism reducing life to nothing and
At the same time to give us the awesome perception of a ceaseless continuity of life through the birth death cycle life is like a labyrinth in which when one gets trapped one cannot Escape one simply keeps spinning through the maze that grotesque is both funny and frightening and Becket tries to heal the
Gaping wound to use the words of Shakespeare of the absurdity of life through a healing release of laughter we become aware of the humor of Cruelty and the cruelty of humor in his place the grotesqueness assaults our aesthetic sensibility as it disturbingly as it is disturbingly at odds with the way we are
Accustomed to view our situation the disorderliness of Life the chaotic nature of life is conveyed through a new form of formlessness where there is no story no plot no characterization and is presented with the help of farce and clownery this new form of play that belongs to the theater of the Absurd
Reflects the paradoxical relationship between the Intolerable condition of human existence and the possible achievement of art now we shall move on to discussing the so-called Angry Young movement which emerged in the UK in the 1950s and lasted until the 1960s or so the the Angry Young movement uh like I said
Represented uh which emerged during the 1950s and early 1960s repres presented a generation of playwrights novelists and Poets who expressed their disillusionment with post-war British Society uh the movement was characterized by rejection of Traditional Values class distinctions and cultural norms and it and it sought to give voice to the
Frustrations and aspirations of working class individuals uh uh key characteristics and themes of the Angry Young Man movement include uh social critique above all playwrights such as John Osborne Arnold Wesker and Sheila Delany critiqued the social constraints and injustices that they observed in postwar Britain their Works often depicted the struggles of
Ordinary people against oppressive social structures and last divisions uh these playwrights favored the style of writing that was grounded uh that was grounded in realism and naturalism Asing the Romanticism and idealism of earlier uh literary movements their plays featured CRI authentic dialogue and settings portraying the harsh real
Ities of urban life and working class existence many of the characters in angry young men plays uh experienced the sense of alienation and discontent with their circumstances they grappled with feelings of frustration anger and disillusionment as they confronted social expectations and limitations uh the movement itself represented a a kind of cultural
Rebellion against established norms and conventions both in literature and Society at large so they the the the playwrights challenged the status quo and pushed boundaries with their provocative themes characters and language and now as as far as language and style of angry young men plays uh are concerned uh the language of these
Plays uh along with the style of course was notable for its rareness and immediacy the dialogue was often colloquial and peppered with slang uh reflecting the speech patterns of the working class characters and this departure from the more formal language of traditional theater contributed to the place uh sense of authenticity and
Relevance of course uh uh identity particular ularly in relation to class was a central concern for the angry young men they explored issues of social Mobility class conflict and the tensions between workingclass values and middle class aspirations notable plays associated with this movement include John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger Arnold
Wesker’s chicken soup with barley Sheila delany’s A Taste of Honey and and Harold Pinter’s early works such as such as birthday party uh these playwrights and their contemporaries helped to shape the landscape of British theater in the post-war period leaving a lasting Legacy of social critique and artistic artistic
Innovation now we we are now going to discuss one important aspect of British drama which is of course postmodernism uh which emerged as a reaction against the conventions of modernist Theater which emphasized realism and psychological depth uh postmodernist play rights uh challenged traditional narrative structures uh blurred the boundaries
Between reality and fiction and deconstructed established norms and ideologies uh here I shall provide an overview of postmodernism in British drama along with some of its most notable authors and their and their plays of course uh of course there is Tom stoer and his play Rosen CR and Gilden Stern
Are dead we’re going to discuss it on Friday on I believe uh displ reimagines Shakespeare’s Hamlet we’ll discuss it on Friday U it reimagines it from the perspective of two minor characters RZ and Gil or roseen CR and gilen St of course but their names a bit
Are a bit long but we’ll call them Ros and Gil uh so the play explores the theme of existentialism Free Will and the nature of of reality those are really philosophical issues uh then there is his play Arcadia published in 1993 which just opposes two timelines
One set in the early 19th century and the other in the present day uh and the play explores the intersection of science literature and Chaos Theory there is of course Harold Pinter whose play the homecoming is uh a true representative of post modernist Vain and in British drama uh
Pinter’s expl exploration of power dynamics and familial relationships take uh takes a dark turn in display where a family reunion becomes a battle ground for control and and domination of course the co the home the homecoming is one of his famous comedies of Menace uh there is his play the birthday party published
In written in and stage in 1957 which represents the early play of of Pinter uh that employs absurdity and ambiguity to depict the intrusion of maning strangers into the mundane life of a boarding house of course we have to mention Carol Churchill and her play top girls uh from
1982 uh the play challenges gender roles and social expectations through a series of surreal dinner party scenes featuring historical and fictional women and uh Carol churches play Cloud9 through its unconventional casting and exploration of sexuality and colonialism offers a critique of social norms and the construction of of
Identity uh then there is Sarah Kane with her plays blasted and and crave uh as far as blasted is concerned uh it it it is known for its graphic depiction of violence and brutality and uh and the play when it when it was first staged uh shocked audiences with
Its uncompromising portrayal of the human capacity for cruelty and suffering uh as far as crave is concerned from 19 the play was stage in 19998 or nine I’m not sure U Sarah can’s fragmented and poetic exploration of love this is what the the play is about
Uh it’s a kind of exploration of love in a poetic manner uh and not just love but also mental illness and with through this play Cain challenges traditional Notions of narrative coherence uh and of course last but not least U is Martin McDon and he’s played the pillow man from
2003 it’s a dark comedy which blends elements of fairy tale and psychological Thriller to explore the relationship between art censorship and violence and uh we have to mention his played the lieutenant of inishmore from 2001 it’s also a black comedy which subverts expectations with its portrayal of political violence in Northern
Ireland mixing humor with gruesome imagery well these play rights among others of course contributed to the to the develop M of postmodernist British Drama by experimenting with form language and themes ultimately challenging audiences to rethink their understanding of real reality and representation on on the
Stage now we shall we shall move on to political theater and social realism uh which emerged as significant movements particularly in the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st century these movements were characterized by a commitment to engaging with pressing political issues social injustices and the uh lived
Experiences of ordinary people uh political theater in Britain uh sought to use the stage as a platform for political discourse and activism and play rights such as David Hair Howard Brenton and Carol Churchill tackled uh wide range of political topics including government corruption uh human rights abuses war and economic
Inequality and their Works aimed to provoke thought Inspire action and hold those in power accountable for their actions uh social realism as a theatrical movement uh aimed to depict the everyday lives of ordinary people in a realistic and authentic manner plays associated with social realism often featured working class characters Urban settings
And dialogue that reflected the speech patterns of the characters and this approach uh provided a fruitful uh portrayal of society and shed light on issues such as poverty unemployment and social inequality uh both political theater and social realism in British drama often critiqued the entrenched class divisions and social hierarchies prevalent in
British Society uh and these play rights uh explored the experiences of workingclass individuals like I said and highlighted the ways in which class impacted access to Opportunities resources and power and of course uh one important aspect of these plays is that they challenged audiences to confront the the the realities of class
Inequality and consider the implications for social justice and uh and solid solidarity uh of course while rooted in realism uh political theater and social realism in British drama also employed Innovative dramatic techniques to convey their messages effectively and play rights experimented with nonlinear narratives fragmented structures and symbolic
Imagery to evoke emotional responses and to encourage critical reflection and these techniques helped to Breathe new life into traditional theatrical forms and engage audiences in in in new and compelling ways as far as the impact and Legacy of political and political theater and social uh realism is concerned uh it can
Be seen in its lasting influence on both theater practice and wider social discourse uh these movements challenged the boundaries of what was considered acceptable subject matter uh for the stage opening up space for marginalized voices and alternative perspectives and their legacy surely continues to inspire contemporary play rights to use theater
As a tool for social change and advocacy uh now in this part of our lecture we shall examine how Samuel Becket embodies the absurdest Tren uh in of the 20th century British drama uh you know that becket’s Masterpiece waiting for gdau grapples with neither Royal Bas bis or
Even proletarian concerns it subject uh is instead is the baress and an anonymity that dominate the lives of its protagonists uh this is a wrinkle in the Western tradition uh rather than an outright rejection of it unlike John Osborne who through his Innovative play uh Look Back in Anger gives voice to the
Angry young men in the British 1950s and his domestic drama uh pitches itself against the conventional upper class drawing room drama Becket doesn’t deal with the social themes of London drama he is an Irishman live writing in France and writing often in French although he he himself also supplied the English
Translations and he has very little interest in the social themes of daily life aside from the inherent high quality of his work he is important here because he created a new mode of playwriting he’s one of those rare artists who really does things in a new way and makes new artistic possibilities
New technical methods available to his contemporaries and his successors like ibson at the end of the 19th century uh and it’s really ibson who invented the modern drama that is the pros play in contemporary realistic setting with strong social implications ibson forged uh the mold in which springberg and Shaw
And O’Neal and Arthur Miller and John Osborne and various others did their best work well for the second half of the 20th century this founder figure uh is Becket um waiting for Gau is now more than 70 years old it was first performed in Paris in January in
1953 it was performed in London two years later it has proved to be the Cornerstone for a lot of uh 20th century drama it’s impossible to make full sense of what Pinter and stoper and uh Alby were doing in the 25 years after waiting for gdau unless you know about Becket
Standing behind him and gdau was only the start for Becket himself he went on to write 31 more plays his dominion over his field is such that uh that an illusion to godau can carry the same kind of magnetic and appe healing quality that a quotation from Hamlet does or a
Quotation from the Bible uh now Becket himself was a rather mysterious figure born in Ireland in 1906 to middle class Protestant Protestant parents well educated at Trinity College Dublin he became one of the great expatriate writers of the 20th century he settled in Paris in 1930s during the war worked
For the French Resistance until he was obliged to take refuge in the south of France he had to flee from the Germans and spend the final years of the war more or less disguised as a French peasant working on the land and then after the war he lived in or near Paris
For the rest of his life lived an intensely private life avoiding interviews not explaining his work guarding the details of his life even when he was award the Nobel Prize for literature ref he refused to go to Scandinavia and pick it up in person he was active in the
Production of his work he did direct plays uh and he worked closely with a number of actors whom he picked out as particularly appropriate to his work having the right sort of talent for for his purposes and in later place he became even more precise um and detailed controlling the
Stage directions he he wrote uh there one there is one play about a woman who Paces up and down and the stage directions indicate exactly how many steps she shall take to cross the stage and back again I think it’s 11 and uh 11 and a half each way and it indicates
Precisely uh what word she shall be saying when she turns to come back in the other direction he was choreographing very precisely indeed and uh indeed in his final years he got very interested in television production rather than the Stage production because of course with a small screen you can
Control even more absolutely what the audience sees and the audience is entirely under your direction whether whereas with a stage uh the audience can choose to look stage right or stage left uh or whatever uh he was active in production but in no way he played the celebrity game that is characteristic of
Many 20th century authors the other Irish Nobel prize winning uh playright George burner Shaw was the dramatist as public man who was forever debating social and political issues and if you didn’t understand his place he would write a long preface to it um and uh explaining it to you and answering
Your your letter about it afterwards Becket uh is the dramatist as private man nonetheless there is a widespread public impression of what sort of man he was his physical appearance was Bleak uh the photographs show thin-faced craggy man the lines in his cheeks are deeply incised the mouth
Is a gash the hair is a short brush cut uh the nose is sharp and aqualine he looks scathed he looks like a Serbian farmer who’s holded nothing but rock all his life and uh and that appearance coordinates with the bleakness of of the place the place uh his place concern isolated and
Alienated people um never more than a few characters in a play those characters uncertainly connected to one another uncertainly connected to their surroundings and trapped at the extremities of uh of experience uh the Becket world is a world mostly without color and uh mostly without warmth the theatrical situations in which the
Characters are placed are bizarre and therefore uh memorable uh and therefore easily uh made the subject of jokes uh this is how we remember the plays uh for example uh becket’s end game is a play where the Aged parents of the leading characters uh living rubbish bins on the
Stage uh there’s another there’s another play called uh Happy Days uh this is the one where in the First Act the leading character is a woman who’s buried up into her wasting sand within her reach she has a few personal possessions and she goes uh sort of through a sort of through a
Sort of routine with them and she talks to her husband whom we mostly don’t see in the second act she’s buried up to her neck and all she can move is her mouth and her eyes so she’s talking out to us this way all the time or take waiting
For gdau for example that’s the play where Two Tramps wait for gdau by a tree wait for gdo to come and he never comes in in each Act the two other men come by poo and lucky uh and eventually they leave without in any way altering the
Situation and at the end of each Act a small boy turns up and and addresses the tramps and says I’m sorry Mr gdau will not come today but certainly tomorrow and the famous comment on this is uh uh that waiting for gdau is a play where nothing happens
Twice Becket uh refined this bleakness almost to the vanishing point in a play called breath first produced in 1969 the year he won the Nobel Prize there are no live actors at all the curtain goes up on a rubbish dump we hear a faint cry we hear an inhalation
Of breath and it is accompanied by a very SL light rise in the lighting level then there is an exhalation of breath accompanied by a very slight fall of the lighting level and then the cry is repeated exactly curtain the whole thing takes 35 seconds late comers will not be seated
Of course uh now it seems all together appropriate to regard uh beckets waiting for as really a kind of Masterpiece of the of the Modern Age not just the Masterpiece of modern theater or the or the theater of the absur or theater at all but the Masterpiece uh for the for
The modern age uh let’s try to situate it a little bit and think about it in terms of drama in general and highlight what is so particular and really unique about display think uh for example about the arpus and uh about the the pain means that Sophocles takes to make us
See that arpus is the exemplary figure that he represents in an emblematic way Athenian culture that he’s a culture hero and he’s a he’s a king a king his most accomplished and daring a physician a sailor a soldier a mathematician a farmer all of these motifs as you can
See in the images of sopes play testify to and cumulatively in a sense uh display the richness of that culture and the various facets of aras’s own achievements and his stature and of course granted the play is about not just his achievements but his hubris or his fall nonetheless even that’s not
Imaginable without seeing the scale of these accomplishments and they are not just personal accomplishments they are the accomplishments of Greek culture it’s a text in which the culture itself is thinking out loud and which sop is showing us what that culture thinks it has achieved and the kind of Grievous
Questions that still linger and of course uh the play the play hinges on that uh it’s very I believe uh telling that you know arpus is the king he’s the representative figure that s wants to give us and of course Aristotle more or less defined tragedy Al along those
Kinds of lines what we can see in this parade of dramatic text from Sophocles now to Becket is that the position of the representative man changes uh by the time we get now by the time we get to buner in the 1830s the representative man is certainly no longer a king nor a
General as it was uh uh in Shakespeare instead in in the wake of a new economic and social order after after the French Revolution um the representative man at least in some sense is the abused proletarian uh the victimized worker or to pick up Shak spear language uh the
So-called uh bear forked animal uh you know a very very long long track away from the from arpus the king um now I have to mention here Northrop fry and his theory of modes uh inspired by Aristotle’s classification of characters into better worse or equal to us uh Northrop fry categorizes all literary
Works into five modes within his historical criticism framework uh however unlike Aristotle’s Reliance on the moral status uh of the protagonist FR classification um is B on two factors uh the protagonist’s power of action or degree of freedom in relation to us and in relation to their environment in
Addition to this division fry notes uh quote a general distinction between fictions in which the hero becomes isolated from his society and fictions in which he’s incorporated into it unquote if the protagonist is is excluded from society fry labels it as the tragic mode of fictional literature whereas if the protagonist becomes
Involved in society is it is termed uh the karmic mode of of fiction in his uh well-known study entitled anatomy of criticism fry extensively demonstrates through various examples from Western European literature how modes function and how there is a how there is a decline in the protagonist’s power of
Action thus according to fry the first the first mode is the myth in which the protagonist uh is a Divine being whose power of action is Superior in kind to ours and to Nature the second mode is uh romance uh where the protagonist is a human being but
Superior in degree to us and to Nature to the surroundings and whose action Whose actions are miraculous the third mode is the high mimetic uh where the protagonist is also a human but is distinguished by position often being a leader or of the people or a king the fourth
Mode is low the so-called low mimic uh because the protagonist’s power is equal to ours meaning the protagonist is just an ordinary person and uh Fry’s final mode uh is irony or ironic in which the hero is inferior in power or intelligence to ourselves so that we
Have the sense of looking down on a scene scene of bondage frustration or absurdity to use the words of himself uh now fry argues that irony emerged from low mimesis because it takes life quote exactly as it finds it unquote and this situation is precisely what we find for
Example in uh in a in a novel by hashek The Good the good soldier uh schwake for example where where the author Des describes the nature of central European bureaucracy consisting of secret agents in every in courts that rule based on mere suspicion prisons or or asylums for
The problematic and authorities who send people off to war in irony the hero is unable to comprehend and Gras grasp the world uh or uh understand what is happening to him and why and although uh the character schwake interprets the world through his own lens and laughs at
It uh other characters in the in the novel like the ironic hero uh Yosef K in kafkas uh famous book The Trial are trapped in an absurd World they cannot comprehend at the end of his analysis of modes uh fry claims that uh quote European fiction during the last 15th century
Has steadily moved its center of gravity down the list unquote concluding that during the last 100 years most serious fiction has tended increasingly to be ironic in mode according to fry therefore in the past 150 years uh literature belongs to the ironic mode in which there are no longer Heroes who can
Influence the events they find themselves in the decline in modes thus demonstrates that the relationship between the strength of the hero and the strength of what surrounds them uh is inversely proportional as the hero’s power weakens external forces that further limit Freedom strengthen however the last two modes in literature still
Coexist as evidenced by the growing popularity of or autobiographical models which predominantly belong to the low mematic mode because they stem from reality and the experience of ordinary people now I have a question for you which mode do you think beckets plays belong to can you hear me yes we can
Okay so I suppose this is a question to the audience yeah it’s a question to the audience so I hope they’re not sleeping right now if if if they were if they have been following me closely they might answer this or we might leave this for the end of the
Listen well yes perhaps okay we could on it’s a better idea now we shall now turn thank you we shall now turn uh return to Becket and his existentialism and his obsession with language and his so-called uh literature of Silence uh well all his life Becket struggled with language dissatisfied
With its inability to express exactly uh the meaning that always just eluded him uh what he nearly achieved was a scream of Agony uh containing the total impotence of of a human life uh becket’s work has been signified as the literature of Silence by uh a theoretician ihab Hassan the reason is
The futile attempt of these Works to commun at in a situation in which words words do not cooperate with the writer in conveying meaning or in articul articulating ideas in uh Ohio impromtu in his dramatic work entitled Ohio impromtu Becket repeatedly asserts that there is quote nothing left to tell
Unquote his obsession with language uh deriv from the incompatibility of words with thoughts and feelings they’re supposed to convey the writer is thus pushed towards creating a literature of unw his awareness of the impossibility of metaphysical immobility of signifiers made him think about silent speaking in which nothing can be approached through
Naming he aspires therefore to create the unnamable most of his critics agreed that because of its inherent impossibility his language is rather a barrier than assistance in the way of understanding him his works like abstract paintings can be perceived in different ways without coming to a definitive interpretation he intentionally avoids
Providing the audience with a definite uh logocentric text uh with a decidable meaning uh the failure of language to communicate the disability of words to convey a fixed signification and the inefficiency of texts to to come to a closure are all portrayed as inevitable in his works as one critic barela
Maintains uh quote be at uh destroying um destroying grammatical syntactic lexical rules and meaning uh creates a sort of non language or rather a way of expression which is to a certain extent not subject to Conventional rules his readers cannot be conventional either they have to interpret the text at different levels
From the lexical to allegorical unquote uh Becket obsession with uh with language uh led him to to the exploration of different philosophical insights in the into the relationship of thinking and language his first published work uh entitled horoscope is a long po poem uh dedicated to the examination of
Cartisian project for uh liberating the thinking self from the constraints of body the aspiration of the coito to free itself from the restraints of reality which was a serious matter for deart turns to be the subject of literary parody for Becket the same parody becomes the central theme of Murphy an explicitly philosophical
Novel written by Becket of course the criticism of cartisian Enlightenment uh idealism and dogmatic interpretation of the world can be traced throughout becket’s literary career his treatment of these ideas however is often ambivalent and parodic uh rather than clear-cut and serious his godau uh though having the mysterious characteristic of uh
Religious savior is presented too Ambiguously and and uh and uh mockingly uh to embody uh the possibility of a SEC solution for the Eternal suffering of humans uh the the mythification of theological interpretation of being though very dominant in his play End Game cannot be taken as a light Motif in
This play the multiplicity of the levels uh of meaning hinders the critics from understanding it uh uh as a crit to a criticism of theological dogmatism although uh it’s reference to religious theme of apocalyptic ending of the world can be infirmed inferred from the from the title itself uh the hold position of
The characters and the promising appearance of the boy at the end of the play uh though uncertain uh deny a Checkmate to the play uh Beck at uh though familiar with the ideas of haiger uh and serter in this relation avoids taking a philosophical position and remains uh skeptical about determined
Definitions uh the class Rya may I chip in for a moment with apologies to interrupt you um as it’s almost uh 15 P9 and we’d like to leave a few minutes for discussion I wonder if we could uh perhaps you know Skip some parts and um or maybe
Summarize uh the rest of your talk so we can have uh you know five or 10 minutes for discussion and uh wrap the whole thing up by 9:30 as planned do you think okay well I can I have prepared a few questions for for the students if they are willing to
Answer them yes yes let’s I have I have I have two questions here so as as regards the as regards becket’s obsession with language the idea is that language according to Becket is in way always ruptured from presence it is unable according to Becket to truthfully depict reality it
Supposedly refers to this is the idea uh as regards the second part of my lesson and uh these are the questions I I want to ask the students if they are willing to answer them of course uh Becket is of course associated with the theater of the Absurd movement and if if
You explore the characteristics of this theatrical style in Becket plays and its influence and other play rights uh one of the questions that might arise uh is how does Becket challenge traditional traumatic inventions how does he do it I touched upon it the first yeah and
And the other one you asked earlier is which of northr Fri mods is most closely associated with Becket fry mentions five modes shall I try my is it is it the ironic mode yeah it is okay so it is the mode where the protagonist is weaker than the ordinary person both intellectually and
Physically and also weaker than the the environment right that’s right so that goes for it can be applied to waiting for good indeed indeed so the play is about Two Tramps two hobos waiting under a tree for someone named godo and they and they do nothing they even refuse to work
They even consider hanging themselves by a tree so that that’s why the play can be aligned with the with the ironic mode that that fry elaborates upon in his in his studies what about Happy Days isn’t weenie also weaker than her environment since she is yeah it is IM mobilized that’s
Right okay all of his characters struggle with the same problems but let’s go back to your second question could you please repeat it yes so uh how does Becket challenge traditional dramatic conventions Well let’s open the floor to our students if any of you or our colleagues if any of you would like to answer this question we have talked about post-dramatic writing and um writing that has been inspired by um becket’s open form so if anybody would like to answer this question
Perhaps we could say that um our students can answer the question in Greek and we’ll translate I that’s Perfect perhaps we could begin with becket’s most um egregious shall I say departure from dramatic convention uh his plays with no actors would that be a good starting point you know you mentioned breath for instance oh you’re talking to me sorry yes sorry yes I thought you were
Discussing it I’m trying I’m trying to get the discussion rolling here yeah well there there are no actors at all in breett exactly yeah you you hear an inhalation of breath then an exhalation of breath and the whole thing takes about 35 seconds there are no words either see in
In breath uh see the human being is completely annihilated so to say human language as well since there are there language as well words and you know human language and and human identity are intertwined so we seek and establish our identities through language and if language doesn’t
Work what what does it mean then right what can happen to our identity if language doesn’t work and we are constantly in this situation where we seek to Define and establish uh ourselves and our identities through language and language no longer works no longer functions I admit it’s a nihilistic worldview it’s rather
Pessimistic but that’s that’s Becket but if I may say so even going back to uh waiting for godau before the minimalist place um Dees became you know really established uh we may say that he is absolutely subverting the traditional structure of the Aristotelian place that we were familiar
With uh up until then and then all of a sudden um instead of the linear uh structure you you get the impression of the cycle where everything is repeated and nothing seems to be um point towards a tellos an end a purpose so we can yeah he starts from the um
Kind of uh subverting the structure and then uh changing the idea of psychology or um eliminating the idea of psychological character alog together and then is we move further into his minimalism than yeah he does a away with actors um and he kind of Blends form and
Text into one thing they become one one thing yeah so yes he he he is the master of that’s right well I I haven’t mentioned his uh play not I correct yeah yeah which dramatizes this search for self-identity and uh uh identity separate from language and environment ends in the
Negation of Self in in this play and in this play he demonstrates how the wholeness of a subject is disintegrated into a mouth which speaks uninterruptedly and an ear which listens to the Obscure narration that’s Becket so perhaps we could uh summarize those points um main points of Becket
Dramaturgy it um undermines our sense of human identity it undermines language uh undermines or does away with the very presence of the human body on stage that’s right would those be valid points do you think or I’m sure you can add more as as as far as the plays we have
Mentioned are concerned those are the major points that he stresses throughout his his place the idea that language is always ruptured from from presence that it has lost its connection to to reality and that storytelling even becomes problematic here how can anyone understand you if you cannot understand your own
Relationship to to the world around you how can you relate to to other people then so it’s not just the the the problem of language it’s also the problem of identity he subverts all of those things language identity and of course narrative structure of traditional narrative structure of
Theater or or or that is to say plays I think this is an important point the one about narrative structure um humans are you know that’s a cliche humans are storytelling animals um we even conceive of our life of our existence as a form of narrative a sort of
Story so if we’re deprived of of that we really have nothing to no leg to stand on yeah absolutely um do you think we could give uh the next five minutes to questions if there are any if there are any questions I don’t see um any questions in the chat
And um me neither yeah um but I must say this was really great and very informative and it such a you know a comprehensive um history of British contemporary modern or modernist as you named it uh um British drama and we’re certainly looking forward to uh your next lectures um focusing on different
Playwrights each time um now we have a you know a good grounding on um how it all started in the the at the end of 19th century and uh you know this has definitely opened up uh our minds to see uh how British drama has progressed and there will be questions
In the next lectures of yours so to just um remind everyone uh tomorrow’s lectur starts at um 8:00 again and it is online it’s the lecture on Harold Pinter so you’re all welcome to join us using the same link um what else if there are no more
Question we can um wrap it up here um thank you so much R for um for this and as I said we’re very much looking forward bearing with me to the next lectures thank you I hope I lived up to your expectations oh my God absolutely thank you so much absolutely thank
You going to stop the recording now um and just see you all tomorrow thank you once