Shorter Plays Theatrical Notebooks, Vol. 4

Mel Gussow, The New York Times
"The Theatrical Notebooks . . . are invaluable maps of Beckett country."


Deirdre Blair, Newsday
"A gold mine for Beckett fans who wish to dig for anecdotes, incidents, illusions, and analogies that appear throughout almost everything else he wrote. . . . Grove is to be commended for the care lavished on the design of these volumes, for they are physically as handsome as their content is comprehensive."


Book Description
Shorter Plays follows Waiting for Godot, Endgame, and Krapp's Last Tape in this highly praised series of Beckett's notebooks, which show for the first time the extensive revisions made by Beckett during revivals of his plays. From the mid-1960s, Samuel Beckett himself directed all his major plays in Berlin, Paris or London. For most of these productions he meticulously prepared notebooks for his personal use. The Theatrical Notebooks of Beckett that are reproduced in facsimile here offer a remarkable record of his own involvement with the staging of his texts. They present his solutions to practical problems of staging but also provide a unique insight into his way of envisaging his own plays. With additional information taken from Beckett's own annotated and corrected copies, S.E. Gontarski has also been able to constitute a revised text for each of the plays. This new text contains Beckett's many changes, corrections, additions and cuts. This volume includes the complete and definitive texts for such plays as Embers, Cascando, Play, Eh Joe, Not I, and Footfalls, as well as his mimes, radio and television plays. The other volumes in this series are Endgame, Krapp's Last Tape, and Waiting for Godot.


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Shorter Plays follows Waiting for Godot, Endgame, and Krapp's Last Tape in this highly praised series of Beckett's notebooks, which show for the first time the extensive revisions made by Beckett during revivals of his plays and presents the complete and definitive texts for Play, Footfalls, Come and Go, What Where, That Time, Eh Joe, and Not I. From the mid-1960s, Samuel Beckett himself directed all his major plays in Berlin, Paris, and London. For most of these productions he meticulously prepared notebooks for his personal use. Beckett's theatrical notebooks, which are reproduced in facsimile here, offer a remarkable record of his involvement with the staging of his texts. They present his solutions to the practical problems of staging and also provide a unique insight into the way he envisaged his own plays. With additional information taken from Beckett's annotated and corrected copies of the plays, and using his experience as a director and scholar, S. E. Gontarski has been able to constitute a revised text for each of the plays, incorporating Beckett's many changes, corrections, additions, and cuts.


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