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Series:   Elements in Beckett Studies

Bad Godots

‘Vladimir Emerges from the Barrel' and Other Interventions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2024

S. E. Gontarski
S. E. Gontarski
Affiliation:
Florida State University

Summary

This Element focuses on the machinery of commercial theatre, on extra-authorial interventions into the creative process and on the people and institutional forces that foster them. Such a process challenges the autonomy of the artwork and authorial integrity. The primary focus of this Element is then on the hybrid genre of theatre where collective esthetics tends to override and so to supersede individual creation. The essay pays special attention to Samuel Beckett's first professionally produced play, Waiting for Godot, primarily its English language premieres in the US, UK, and the Republic of Ireland. Its implications, however, reach far beyond the genetic and production histories of a single theatrical work to deal with the nature of authorship in a monetized culture, the process of realizing dramatic texts in such a culture, and Samuel Beckett's engagement with such machinery of art.
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Keywords

co-authorshiptextual reliabilitytheatrical adaptationcommercial art and monetary culturepublication history
Type
Element
Information
Series: Elements in Beckett Studies
Online ISBN: 9781009180702
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 22 February 2024

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Bibliography

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