No Author Better Served: The Correspondence of Samuel Beckett and Alan Schneider [Paperback]

Samuel Beckett (Author), Alan Schneider (Author), Maurice Harmon (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0674003853 | ISBN-13: 978-0674003859 | Publication Date: October 2, 2000

For Alan Schneider, directing Endgame, Samuel Beckett lays out the play's philosophy, then adds: "Don't mention any of this to your actors!"

He claimed he couldn't talk about his work, but Beckett proves remarkably forthcoming in these pages, which document the thirty-year working relationship between the playwright and his principal producer in the United States. The correspondence between Beckett and Schneider offers an unparalleled picture of the art and craft of theater in the hands of two masters. It is also an endlessly enlightening look into the playwright's ideas and methods, his remarks a virtual crib sheet for his brilliant, eccentric plays.

Alan Schneider premiered five of Beckett's plays in the United States, including Waiting for Godot, Krapp's Last Tape,and Endgame, and directed a number of revivals. Preparing for each new production, the two wrote extensive letters--about intended tone, conception of characters, irony and verbal echoes, staging details for scenes, delivery of individual lines. From such details a remarkable sense of the playwright's vision emerges, as well as a feel for the director's task. Of Godot, Beckett wrote to Schneider, "I feel my monster is in safe keeping." His confidence in the director, and Schneider's persistent probing for a surer understanding of each play, have produced a marvelous resource: a detailed map of Beckett's work in conception and in production.

The correspondence starts in December 1955, shortly after their first meeting, and continues to Schneider's accidental death in March 1984 (when crossing a street to mail a letter to Beckett). The 500 letters capture the world of theater as well as the personalities of their authors. Maurice Harmon's thorough notes provide a helpful guide to people and events mentioned throughout.

(20010120)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Samuel Beckett's view of existence seems so remorselessly, brilliantly bleak that one doesn't expect much in the way of human warmth from his correspondence. Yet the letters he and director Alan Schneider exchanged over the course of three decades are full of wit and fellow feeling. The focus, to be sure, is on Beckett's plays, five of which Schneider premiered in the United States between 1956 and 1983. But that happens to be the perfect conduit for the playwright's praise (often directed at his acolyte) and disgust (often directed at his audience, his critics, and himself). When the initial American production of Waiting for Godot bombs in Miami, for instance, Beckett cheers Schneider on even as he pummels the ticket holders: "It is probable our conversations confirmed you in your aversion to half-measures and frills, i.e. to precisely those things that 90% of theatre-goers want. Of course I know the Miami swells and their live models can hardly be described as theatre-goers and their reactions are no more significant than those of a Jersey herd and I presume their critics are worthy of them." No Author Better Served conveys Beckett's sense of humility, which never failed him, even after Godot made him famous: "Success and failure on the public level never mattered much to me, in fact I feel much more at home with the latter, having breathed deep of its vivifying air all my writing life up to the last couple of years." It's also a wonderful document of his complete, sometimes nutty, always inspiring devotion to his art. --James Marcus --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

The great playwright exchanges letters with his favorite American stage director. In 1955 Alan Schneider was invited to direct the American production of Beckett's Waiting for Godot. He went to London to meet the playwright beforehand, and a warm, productive relationship soon developed, ending only with Schneider's accidental death in 1984. (He was fatally struck by a car while walking to a mailbox, intending to post a letter to Beckett.) Their correspondence279 letters from Beckett, 209 from Schneideris of partcular interest in matters of Beckett's stagecraft and self-interpretation. Because of Beckett's confidence in him, Schneider was privileged to premiere five of the Nobelist's works in the US, including Waiting for Godot, Krapp's Last Tape, and Endgame. The notoriously demanding playwright favored Schneider, as Maurice Harmon (Anglo-Irish Literature/ University Coll., Dublin) explains in his concisely excellent introduction, because Schneider ``did not intrude upon the work but submitted himself attentively to it, discovering its imaginative inner life, most pleased in the end if his contribution to the play's successful performance could be unnoticed.'' Schneider honored Beckett's intentions scrupulously. Consequently, Beckett is in his letters most forthcoming about his wishes and intentions for his plays. Scrupulous, too, is editor Harmon who supplies useful and thorough notes for each letter. Taken together, the Beckett-Schneider letters also offer a unique overview of Beckett's stage work in the US. Apart from their detailed discussion of the plays that Beckett entrusted to Schneider, we are privy to their expert comments on the successes and failures of other Beckett productions here and abroad. The tone is warm and friendly throughout, yet the letters are curiously uninteresting in any regard except theater matters. A well-edited set of documents that will be uniquely invaluable to students of Beckett's works and of the American theater. (21 line illustrations, not seen) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (October 2, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674003853
• ISBN-13: 978-0674003859
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,552,360 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Samuel Beckett was born in Dublin in 1906. He was educated at Portora Royal School and Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in 1927. His made his poetry debut in 1930 with Whoroscope and followed it with essays and two novels before World War Two. He wrote one of his most famous plays, Waiting for Godot, in 1949 but it wasn't published in English until 1954. Waiting for Godot brought Beckett international fame and firmly established him as a leading figure in the Theatre of the Absurd. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. Beckett continued to write prolifically for radio, TV and the theatre until his death in 1989.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars For hard-core fans. Others might be bored., March 28, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: No Author Better Served: The Correspondence of Samuel Beckett and Alan Schneider (Hardcover)

This book is a collection of correspondence, and like al collected correspondence, it must be taken with a grain of salt. Samuel Beckett was a brilliant, albeit incredibly self-indulgent author, and in this collection his personality is on full display. For example, he disregards bad reviews and cold audience reaction to his plays, because by and large he felt that they were not getting the joke, and that his writing was too complicated for the Philistines in the audience to appreciate.

Fans of Beckett will enjoy this book becuase it will help them understand who he was and where he was coming from in his absurd plays. Also, people who work in theater will be able to relate to the author-director relationship and understand how both artists shape what appears on stage. For those who are not Beckett experts (like myself), there is still much delight to be obtained from Beckett's prose. He won the Nobel Prize because he was an excellent writer, and this book provides otherwise unavailable pieces written by him -- his correspondence. However, unless the reader has a deep interest in one of the two corresponders it can get a little dry.