Samuel Beckett, one of the great avant-garde Irish dramatists and writers of the second half of the twentieth century, was born on 13 April 1906. He died in 1989. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. His centenary will be celebrated throughout 2006 with performances of his major plays, but the most popular of them all will be, without doubt, the play with which he first made his name, Waiting for Godot. It opened the gates to the theatre of the absurd as four men appear on the stage, apparently with purpose but (perhaps) waiting for someone called Godot. It is stark, funny, bemusing and still deeply affecting half a century since its first production. In this new recording for Audiobook, John Tydeman, for many years head of BBC Radio Drama, takes a fresh look at one of the milestones in Western drama.
It follows the highly acclaimed recordings of Beckett’s Trilogy, Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable published by Naxos Audiobooks.
Samuel Beckett's classic tragicomedy is known its lack of plot--"Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful!" Two old tramps beneath a single tree make jokes to pass the time and reflect on the state of human existence while they wait for Godot--who never comes. This audio version emphasizes the pathos over the slapstick (we can't see Estragon's pants falling down or the hat-swapping routine). David Burke adeptly channels Estragon's hopelessness with a pitiful and childlike whine while Sean Barrett's Vladimir employs a more hopeful and coherent tone. Nigel Anthony as narrator is subtle and effective at doing the work of the stage directions (how else would we know what the often mute Lucky is doing?) so we understand the spare stage that helps communicate the bleak theme. A.B. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
