Is Beckett Bunk or What?

How much are peopl paying for tickets?

Who knows. The first nighters will probably pay just to say, "Beckett's done it again."

Ha ha. someone is taking the piss. the arty farty types are winding everyone up.

Becket ? Thomas 'a or the other one, Samuel

Either Samuel or Thomas, Oak, one's a martyr..the other a farter...

sounds like a clever little scam to milk the arty farty fraternity

I agree with the reviewer:



A pretty light show isn't theatre.

No, Mac, a pretty light show is not theatre, but there is always someone standing in the wings...

Moving this from Film to Performing Arts

This reminds me of Andy Warhol's films but experimental theater has always been alive and well. A Shaggy Dog story in lights, perhaps?

Thanks, Mr. Wizard. I wasn't quite certain where to put it. Since some of Beckett's plays have been on film, I decided to opt for that category. If you can believe it, I could have gotten by with putting it in the TV category, cause that's where I saw it. It was on the 6:00 P.M. news.

Yeah, a very shaggy dog.

It is technically theater even though it seems like an art happening (in which case, it would be in the art forum!)

What's the artist trying to prove? Like climbing Mt. Everest because it is there?

Goofiness is next to...silliness.

Mr. Wizard, goofiness is next to silliness?

I really think that Beckett was putting the world on, honestly, just as I have always thought that some of Picasso's stuff was purposely poor, and designed to give a secret jab at the phonies.

(aside: I saw "The Asphalt Jungle" on AMC the other night. Miss Marilyn's debut. She wasn't bad)

Many renowned artists in any discipline do enjoy pulling the publics dipstick in the name of experimental art. The critics either say "wonderful" cos they are gullible or it's crap cos they don't like it. The public don't give a toss about it anyway and would throw it in a landfill

Duchamp and Man Ray certainly were poking intellectual fun at the pretentions of fine art -- Picasso created very personal artistic statements but unless there's an obvious message like in "Guernica," he seemed more Hell bent on going out on a stylistic limb. He began to copy himself in the early 40's and would readily admit it. James Rosenquist also created some imagery with some jabbing commentary on the arts.

Sometimes artists just get board and end up making a stab in the dark as a statement. Obviously, this one was trying to light up the dark as a statement -- the question would be if one attended the performance and got anything out of it. Minimalism is either sublimely effective or it falls flat on its face.

Right on, John Oak.

Mr. Wizard, I swear DuChamp's Nude descending the staircase, was hilarious, to me. I drew a reasonable facsimile on the chalk board, and my students couldn't tell the difference.

Beckett (the playwright) was expressing a view of the condition of man alone in a bleak and unfriendly universe. Not material for tenderfoots. Let me quickly add that his plays are funny. He was a devotee of the circus. In his most famous play, "Waiting for Godot", one character decides to commit suicide, doesn't have any rope, takes his belt off to use and his pants fall down. Charlie Chaplin created the simple character of a tramp who communicated volumes with a gesture,a body stance, etc. In the 20th century we have Picasso simplifing the world to a point of abstraction (He was very capable of realistic painting, but it apparently bored him as it did Miro, Pollock, etc. ) In music there are such 20th century pioneers as John Cage challenging the very nature of music. And, the wonderful discordant music of Charles Ives, the insurance salesman from New England.

I think a similar thing occured in cars, too. Think. Where have all the fenders gone, the headlights, the horn button, the running boards? And, now, where in hell are the bumpers??

Avante guarde art is art ahead of its time. Artists are the antennae of society.

So what's wrong with a 35 second play? A prize fight can last less than that.
Beckett's dead by the way.

My comments are meant to be taken seriously, but light heartedly.

I use the term "artsy fartsy" but I also use the word "Phillistines."

Hey, Billy. Good to interact with you again. Did you see the play, incidentally?

Billy, I am no connoisseur of art. but I do know what I like, and that's what art is all about, right? I still contend that this play was Beckett's way of laughing at the supercilious set, and the irony of it all is that he, being the genius that he was, was condescending himself. That I can appreciate.

There is a human element -- the audience. Which may or may not be the point.

At any rate, people who paid (and probably not all that handsomely) will be able to talk about the thing for years, get nicely worked up / amused / bemused about it, and be none the poorer, really. (Nobody out there is panhandling for money to go to the theatah, methinks.) On the other hand, you can drop a couple of hundred bucks on some bloated, saccharine musical, and forget about it in two weeks.

I know which experience I'd rather have. (But, then, I don't really go to the theatah any more...)

Oops, should have read the review first. My initial response was to Beckett's "Breath," which I've heard about previously -- and was hardly alone in conception -- lots of stuff going on like that in Paris and Rome at the turn of the last century.

The performance reviewed sounds utterly without humor or mischief...

patio, I'm sorry to have mislead you. I really posted the link to give the readers a look into Beckett's "Breath" not "Breathe". That was short sighted of me; however, I think most here have understood the drift of my thread, and you're right, patio. Depends on what one wants for his money.