"Ever tried, ever failed. No matter. Try again, fail again, fail better."
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The great minimalist Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) is widely considered not only one of the most influencial and essential playwrights of the 20th century, but the father of the Theatre of the Absurd. This mode of theatre, including such playwrights as Eugene Ionesco and Edward Albee, often enforced existential elements upon the stage. Beckett's ultimate goal in so doing is to suggest the relatively absurd nature of the human condition. He protests that main motivation behind human existence is that of routine within a constant state of inescapable limbo. |
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These philosophical elements coincide not only with the existential perspectives on life (specifically those set forth by Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre), but with the events of his time. Samuel Beckett was indeed a post-war playwright in Europe, and many of his plays including his acclaimed Waiting for Godot and Endgame carry subtle allusions to utter devastation and consequently the enduring process of reconstruction. Beckett's shorter drama normally carry a much less obvious message dealing with physical and mental restraint, the bitter solitude of the self in the universe, and often allegorical perspectives on the nature of man's relationship to his God. Beckett's atheistic tendancies were well accepted as he never seemed to attack the notion of God in his works as did the likes of Friedrich Nietzsche, but instead toyed with the idea of an all-powerful, all-knowing creator in often humorous and often drastically profound manners. Perhaps it seems paradoxical to suggest that Beckett treated the same issues in both profound and superficial manner, however this was the nature of his "tragicomedy" and similarly the nature of his stance on the nature of existence. Life was merely a seemingly endless supply of failures, failures however of which we were meant to make the best. For his efforts in the field of literature, Samuel Beckett was awared the Nobel Prize in 1969.
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Selected Readings
Murphy (1938)
Malloy, Malone Dies, The Unnameable (1945-50)
Waiting for Godot (1952)
All That Fall (1957)
Endgame (1957)
Krapp's Last Tape (1958)
Happy Days (1961)
Selected other short plays including Catastrophe and his Act Without Words I and II
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Samuel Beckett