Endspiel production notebook : Berlin, Aug.-Sept. 1967

BC MS 1396/4/5

1967

Samuel Beckett was born in Foxrock, County Dublin on Good Friday, 13 April 1906. Although throughout his life he had the reputation of being sombre, mysterious and reclusive, this popular myth hid a very private, yet immensely generous, gracious and caring person. On entering Trinity College, Dublin, Beckett developed his interest in art, music and literature. He was a gifted linguist who also enjoyed vaudeville theatre and the films of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and the Marx Brothers. An academic career seemed to be the obvious option on graduating but, after spells teaching in Paris and Dublin, Beckett realised he was more suited to the artistic lifestyle he had encountered in Paris in the company of James Joyce. Having witnessed the intolerance of the Nazi regime towards writers and artists in Germany in 1936, Beckett famously decided that he preferred France at war to Ireland in peace, opting to live in France for the rest of his life. However, this bold decision was more than a mere gesture. Beckett was forced to spend much of the war on the run from the Nazis in the South of France working with the French Resistance, for which he was later awarded the Croix de Guerre. The end of the war marked a burst of literary activity for Beckett, who began writing, in French, a dense prose trilogy comprising Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable. As a relaxation from this project, between October 1948 and January 1949, Beckett worked on a play entitled En attendant Godot - the work which brought him international fame and recognition and which redefined modern theatre. Further literary success ensued, culminating in him being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. As the years progressed, Beckett's prose and drama decreased in length, as he found increasingly successful ways to express the inexpressible. Yet throughout his career, he remained a bilingual author, creating French and English versions of almost all his work. During the 1970s Beckett directed his major stage plays in Berlin in German, exhibiting another side of his character. His success in this field led him to direct his own plays created specifically for television - a medium which seemed perfect for the stark, imposing images of these later, minimalist pieces. Samuel Beckett died on 22 December 1989 and was buried in a private ceremony in the Cimetière de Montparnasse in Paris.

Holograph with handwritten alterations by the author.Yellow "Zoo ?editions Sopalin" notebook, featuring penguins on the front cover, containing 72 pages of squared paper (p.4-5, 8-9, 11-13, 16-17, 20-21, 24-25, 28-29, 33, 35-37, 41, 45, 48-49, 52-53, 55-57, 61, 64-69 blank). Front cover is inscribed "Endspiel Berlin. Aug.-Sept. 1967 (Sept. 26)" by Beckett.Inside front cover contains a breakdown of the play into sections by Beckett.Notebook contains notes and diagrams, in blue ink, written in English by Beckett in preparation for his German production of Endspiel (Fin de partie) at the Schiller-Theater Werkstatt, Berlin, in September 1967.Published as a facsimile in: Endgame : with a revised text / Samuel Beckett ; edited with an introduction and notes by S.E. Gontarski, London : Faber & Faber, 1992, p.[75]-171.Former reference number: BECKETT COLLECTION--MSS DRAMA/FIN 04Manuscript notebook prepared by Samuel Beckett for his own production of Endspiel presented at the Schiller Theater Werkstatt, Berlin, September 1967.22 x17cm. 37 leaves. Yellow covers; 'Zoo: editions Soplain' style notebook, with colour picture of penguins on front cover. Squared paper. Inscribed by Beckett on front cover, 'Endspiel Berlin Aug. Sept. 1967 (Sept. 26)'. Blue ink throughout. There are many ideas conceived, proposed and rejected by Becket within the scope of this notebook. The arrangement of sections within the book indicates that it was prepared before rehearsals began, and that much material was inserted into its structure during the working process. Some leaves are left blank, but this notebook is unusual in that Beckett often leaves alternate double pages blank, thus allowing himself the possibility of adding diagrams and notes during rehearsals. On the inside front cover, and on the first page (RUL.f2), Beckett divides the play into sixteen sections, in three different ways. the first list divides using the page numbers in the play text used by Beckett for this production. Thus, section I runs from p.9 to p.11, section 2 from p.11 to p.29, and so on. The second listing divides the play by noting the main incident, according to Beckett, in each of the sixteen sections. Beckett also divides the play into five larger groups here. The third listing, on f.2, uses the last and first lines of each section to define their limits. Following these 'indexes', the sections then proceed in more detail. The sections detail in very specific terms the sequence of actions in the particular scenes under scrutiny. These notes include sketches of the movements of Clov. This system of notation runs up to f.33. The double pages up to f.36 are blank. On verso f.36 and on both sides of f.37- the last three pages in the book- are listings of Clov's exits and entrances, and a list headed 'General' which carries notes on lighting, etc.

1 item ; 22 cm.

English

file

Samuel Barclay Beckett, 1906-1989, Schiller-Theater Werkstatt (Berlin)

Fin de partie, Dramatic production, Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc

The copying of any of Beckett’s handwriting and sketches, or any unpublished letters, typescripts, manuscripts or draft versions of his work that differ from the final published version is not permitted.

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