Beckett's Laboratory: Experiments in the Theatre Enclosure

Becketts Laboratory offers new insights into Samuel Beckett's approach to stage direction, reconsidering his experimentalism with stage representation and composition. By acknowledging his experimental processes, from composition to reception, Wakeling explores the innovative representations of humanity that emerged in Becketts practice. The book positions Becketts plays as a composition for performance, drawing upon post-dramatic, symbolist, materialist, and post-structural understandings of theatre performance. It includes familiar and unexplored contemporary theatre productions and films of Becketts works to explore the philosophical underpinnings of his practices.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 224 pages
Publication date: 29 December 2022
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Offering fresh studies of Samuel Beckett in pre-production, rehearsal, as an innovator of the script form, and as a speculative director and designer, Becketts Laboratory reconsiders Becketts stringent approach to stage direction through the lens of the laboratory and reveals his experimentalism with stage representation and composition. Wakeling argues that acknowledging Becketts experimental processes, from their composition to their reception, is crucial to understanding the innovative representations of humanity that emerged at different stages in Becketts practice. Repositioning Becketts performance oeuvre in relation to philosophy, Wakeling draws upon post-dramatic, symbolist, materialist, and post-structural understandings of theatre performance to reappraise Becketts plays as a composition for performance. The philosophical underpinnings of Becketts practices are explored through an eclectic mix of familiar and unexplored contemporary theatre productions and films of Becketts works, including Not I, Nacht und Träume, Happy Days, Footfalls, and Catastrophe. Becketts Laboratory is a provocative examination of Becketts experimentalism with the human spectacle and his playful reliance upon the interpretative powers of the actors and audience.

Offering fresh studies of Samuel Beckett in pre-production, rehearsal, as an innovator of the script form, and as a speculative director and designer, Becketts Laboratory reconsiders Becketts stringent approach to stage direction through the lens of the laboratory and reveals his experimentalism with stage representation and composition. Wakeling argues that acknowledging Becketts experimental processes, from their composition to their reception, is crucial to understanding the innovative representations of humanity that emerged at different stages in Becketts practice. Repositioning Becketts performance oeuvre in relation to philosophy, Wakeling draws upon post-dramatic, symbolist, materialist, and post-structural understandings of theatre performance to reappraise Becketts plays as a composition for performance. The philosophical underpinnings of Becketts practices are explored through an eclectic mix of familiar and unexplored contemporary theatre productions and films of Becketts works, including Not I, Nacht und Träume, Happy Days, Footfalls, and Catastrophe. Becketts Laboratory is a provocative examination of Becketts experimentalism with the human spectacle and his playful reliance upon the interpretative powers of the actors and audience.

Weight: 236g
Dimension: 138 x 216 x 18 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781350238770