On January 13 2016, UCC welcomed director Judy Hegarty-Lovett and actor Conor Lovett into the usual Wednesday seminar to discuss Samuel Beckett with a presentation entitled “Proses Works and Plays: Staging Beckett” . Both great enthusiasts of Beckett’s work, I was enthralled in the seminar from start to finish (I even asked some questions!) Beckett’s work has, for a long time, set my imagination alight. A truly original voice I have long thought. As a theatre director myself, his plays test my sense of interpretation and representation through the empty space one’s imagination makes when they try to visualise something described and written down. How would I compose this? And better yet, how would I show this to somebody whose never seen it before and still keep the author’s respect? It’s a routine of plotting things in my own theatre (head) space whenever I read anything. So needless to say I jumped at this chance!
Conor and Judy stressed how Beckett’s language of the stage is something global, even universally understood and yet still interpretative and timeless which they credit wholeheartedly to Beckett’s mastery of the written word. Stating, “It is less about what we do to Beckett, but what Beckett does for us” (Hegarty Lovett 2016). I began to think about the theatre stage as if it were empty and the relevance of that written word Beckett chased. In an age where scripts are written through a mundane self-awareness, a modernist throwback or an experimental and ultimately pretentious pastiche, how refreshingly timeless was Beckett’s approach to stage dynamics and objective? Not simply a writer who wrote, but someone who had meaningful vision to convey, something which we all strive to communicate. To possess the talent and mastery to tap upon a visceral nerve of expression in the most minimal and absurd way through stage writing as Beckett did. It comes down to the strange and unconventional as accepted.
Judy and Conor also explained how Beckett’s repetition of lines and episodes are key to understanding his approach to the stage as not only writer, but pre-ordained director of his own work early on. They also stressed Beckett’s relationship to drama as a musician to a song, constantly striving to find the “musicality” of the word in his work. I thought of Waiting for Godot immediately. It feels very musical through its repetition of lines and progression. The shift of character’s thoughts (something which is also prevalent in Endgame) is immediately contradicted by life’s own refusal to give these 
characters a coda, “We’re waiting for Godot.” (Beckett, Godot 14) there’s no end to the record spinning on the turn table. Didi and Gogo are living life through the moving staves with frequent rests or (silences). How there was no one kind of music, the same way there is no one way of writing. This musicality comes through in his stage directions which as Judy and Conor stressed were followed to the note. Beckett did not write to delineate from his original vision. Everything on page was there for to be followed. This amalgamation of lyrical musicality and to the note direction is perfectly illustrated in Endgame’s use of the [pause]. From this example alone, it’s clear to see Beckett’s musicality blends the forms, it’s drama, but there are clear elements of a lyrical verse style and the narrative prose at work too.
[Wearily.] Quiet, quiet. You’re keeping me awake. [Pause.] Talk softer. [Pause.] If I could sleep I might make love. I’d go into the woods. My eyes would see . . . the sky, the earth. I’d run, run, they wouldn’t catch me. [Pause.] Nature [Pause.] There’s nothing dripping in my head. [Pause.] A heart, a heart in my head.[Pause.] (Beckett, Endgame 14)
By the time question time rolled around I had so many to ask, just to ask something as preliminary as, “Have you ever found you’ve had to compromise your own vision for the sake of a production?” or “Where does the spirit of Beckett end and the director’s begin? Do you find it a struggle to put your own mark on material like this?” These are question I genuinely wanted to know the answers to and Judy and Conor very graciously explained from their experience how these sorts of things take practice, rehearsal and a lot of pre-production plotting. It felt so rewarding to have guests with such hands-on theatrical experience at the college and it was an honour to get to talk to them both afterwards about the work they have done. I was just hanging on every word. A truly memorable seminar I am very glad I attended.
Work Cited
Beckett, Samuel. Endgame. London: Faber and Faber, 2009. Print.
—. Waiting for Godot. London: Faber and Faber, 1965. Print.
Hegarty-Lovett, Judy & Lovett, Conor. January 13 2016 Judy Hegarty-Lovett & Conor Lovett, “Prose Work and Plays: Staging Beckett”. School of English Research Seminar. O’Rahilly Building, University College Cork, Cork City. 13 January 2016. Lecture.
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