Images of Beckett - Index of

at rehearsals was to make everything appear clear and simple, and other
actors whom Beckett directed spoke of how invaluable and reassuring it was
to have him there, whenever a difficult line or an awkward move came up. 14
He scarcely ever discussed questions of meaning, however, with the
performers. In letters about Endgame to Alan Schneider, he was happy
enough to write to his director friend about the relevance of the arguments of
the Sophists to the play. Yet he warned Schneider, ‘Don’t mention any of this
to your actors!’ 15 To the actors in the German Endgame at the Schiller Theatre,
he said: ‘I don’t want to talk about my play; it has to be taken purely
dramatically to take shape on the stage. There’s nothing in it about
philosophy – maybe about poetry. Here the only interest of the play is as
dramatic material.’ 16 When Gudrun Genest asked Beckett whether Nell, the
character she was playing, really did die in her bin, he replied, hiding behind
an ironic disclaimer of special knowledge, ‘So it seems, but no one knows.’ 17
Even with Magee and MacGowran, when they were rehearsing Endgame in
London, he pleaded ignorance of the wider implications of his text: ‘I only
know what’s on the page’ he says with a friendly gesture, ‘Do it your way.’ 18
At rehearsals, he deliberately shied away from discussing ideas. Yet,
watching him direct his plays or talking to him privately, it was obvious – in
spite of his comment to the actors – that he was acutely aware of the
philosophical issues, hidden resonances and ambiguities that are deeply
embedded in his writing. ‘The play is full of echoes’, he admitted to the
German cast of Endgame, ‘they all answer each other’. 19 Directing his own
work, he concentrated on picking up these echoes. But he treated them, as
he promised he would, purely as dramatic material, as elements in a complex
poetic and musical structure.
Rather than talk in abstract concepts, what Beckett tended to do with
actors was to find simple, concrete images to convey essential truths about
the character or the situation. In this way, he was able, without discussing
questions of meaning, to provide them with hooks on which they could hang
their performances. ‘Winnie has something bird-like about her, something
(Left) Leonard Fenton and Billie Whitelaw in Happy Days, 1979
BECKETT AS DIRECTOR 103