Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), the Irish novelist, playwright, and poet who became French by adoption, was one of the most original and important writers of the century. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1969. Samuel Beckett stood apart from the lite...

Samuel Beckett, whose play Waiting for Godot has influenced several generations of contemporary playwrights throughout the world, was a dramatist who considered himself a much better novelist. He thought of his plays as diversions undertaken at times whe...

Samuel Beckett is an Irishman who has lived in France since 1938 and who has written much of his drama and fiction in French. The phenomenal success of his play En attendant Godot (1952; published in English as Waiting for Godot, 1954) has made him known...

(ALBERY THEATER; 876 SEATS; 40 [pounds sterling] ($74) TOP) LONDON A Sonia Friedman Prods. and Matthew Mitchell presentation of the Samuel Beckett play in one act. Directed by Matthew Warchus. Sets and costumes, Rob Howell; lighting, Mark Henderson; sound, Paul Groothuis; music,...

...

Neighbors have noticed some peculiar noises coming from inside the ancient Hotel Riverview in Greenwich Village. Could it be the shrieking ghosts of the sunken Titanic, whose lost souls are rumored to haunt the former seaman’s flophouse—or, is it just the clamor of illegal construction?...

Egypt's foreign minister said Friday that upcoming U.S.-proposed peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians must have a clear focus similar to those negotiations that led to the signing of the landmark peace deal between in Egypt and Israel in 1979.Ahmed Aboul Gheit said that if...

Various keys to Endgame's interpretation are in place: "Endgame" is a term of chess; the name Hamm is shared by Noah's cursed son, it titles a kind of actor, it starts recalling Hamlet. But no interpretation I have seen details the textual evidence for these relations nor shows how the play's meaning opens with them. Without this, we will have a general impression of the play, one something like this: Beckett's perception is of a "meaningless universe"...

In the following essay, Kumar notes that chess is the underlying metaphor in Beckett's Endgame and explains the characters' inability to move, need for protection, and use of pawns as metaphors for human existence.

After the little canters of Waiting for Godot, Beckett composed a substantial "chronicle" for Endgame, providing one of the best examples of extended narrative as an essential part of drama: the presence of story is unmistakable here, both to the audience and to characters within the play. Hamm refers by name to his "chronicle" and is self-conscious in his narration of it, aware of himself assuming the role of historian, aware of himself adopting a special voice and manner settin...