Beckett Directs Godot

Summary

Beckett is coming to Berlin to direct Waiting for Godot. He is no stranger at the Schiller Theater: after Endgame, Krapp's Last Tape, and Happy Days, this is his fourth visit as a director. He also took part in the rehearsals of Godot ten years ago, and it was then that he met the actors Bollman, Wigger, and Herm. Bollman and he had also worked together on Endgame.

Rehearsal conditions are ideal: from 28 December to 8 March, mornings only, mostly on stage. Everybody taking part in the production brings enormous sympathy and respect toward Beckett—to such an extent that this will be inevitably, though not obtrusively, reflected in the working process. But he is not only respected as an authority, as a competent interpreter of his own script; more than that the working relationship with him is characterized by caution, attention, concessions, and openness—criteria for attitudes to set free his own attitude. On this basis, everybody tries not to disturb, but to strengthen the tacit mutual trust and to do their job with the highest possible degree of understanding and appreciation toward Beckett.