Beckett Bombshells
Fri, 10 Jan 2003, 08:18 amGrant Malcolm3 posts in thread
Beckett Bombshells
Fri, 10 Jan 2003, 08:18 amThe notoriously restrictive Beckett estate are causing uproar over Neil Armfield's Belvior production of Waiting For Godot:
"Hell hath no fury like a director scorned. Neil Armfield yesterday broke his diplomatic public silence in spectacular fashion, attacking the Beckett estate - and its autocratic literary bulldog, the playwright's nephew Edward.
Armfield's verbal fireworks did not disappoint. "In coming here with its narrow prescriptions, its dead controlling hand, its list of "not alloweds", the Beckett estate seems to me to be the enemy of art," he thundered to an audience of equally vocal Beckett scholars at the Wharf yesterday."
http://smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/09/1041990050207.html
"It comes as no great surprise that the keepers of the Beckett flame have reacted stonily to Australian stagings of Waiting for Godot and Endgame. After all, Samuel Beckett is akin to a saint, an Irish national treasure whose words, in their simplicity and apparent ordinariness, glimpse the divine. Disciples, unlike the everyday audiences at which the Sydney Festival productions are aimed, can be blinkered in their vision, although I have no doubt their protective intentions are good."
http://smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/09/1041990050488.html
After the opening performance of the Company B production of Waiting for Godot, the cast, exhausted but exhilarated, still in their costumes, waited, no longer for Godot, but for Edward (Beckett, the playwright's nephew).
Their wait proved as fruitful as their characters' had just been. He was due to come backstage for a photo opportunity - the 50th anniversary snap for the Herald to launch the show, the symposium, the celebration of the work of this greatest of 20th-century artists.
There had been ominous signs: the friend seated beside me had during the curtain call snapped "manners!" to the figure charging up the stairs while the actors were still bowing on stage. "Mary", I said to her, "that's Edward Beckett".
http://smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/09/1041990050847.html
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"Hell hath no fury like a director scorned. Neil Armfield yesterday broke his diplomatic public silence in spectacular fashion, attacking the Beckett estate - and its autocratic literary bulldog, the playwright's nephew Edward.
Armfield's verbal fireworks did not disappoint. "In coming here with its narrow prescriptions, its dead controlling hand, its list of "not alloweds", the Beckett estate seems to me to be the enemy of art," he thundered to an audience of equally vocal Beckett scholars at the Wharf yesterday."
http://smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/09/1041990050207.html
"It comes as no great surprise that the keepers of the Beckett flame have reacted stonily to Australian stagings of Waiting for Godot and Endgame. After all, Samuel Beckett is akin to a saint, an Irish national treasure whose words, in their simplicity and apparent ordinariness, glimpse the divine. Disciples, unlike the everyday audiences at which the Sydney Festival productions are aimed, can be blinkered in their vision, although I have no doubt their protective intentions are good."
http://smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/09/1041990050488.html
After the opening performance of the Company B production of Waiting for Godot, the cast, exhausted but exhilarated, still in their costumes, waited, no longer for Godot, but for Edward (Beckett, the playwright's nephew).
Their wait proved as fruitful as their characters' had just been. He was due to come backstage for a photo opportunity - the 50th anniversary snap for the Herald to launch the show, the symposium, the celebration of the work of this greatest of 20th-century artists.
There had been ominous signs: the friend seated beside me had during the curtain call snapped "manners!" to the figure charging up the stairs while the actors were still bowing on stage. "Mary", I said to her, "that's Edward Beckett".
http://smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/09/1041990050847.html
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