Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
Mel Gussow, drama critic for the New York Times, first meets Beckett in Paris in 1978. They meet virtually once a year for the next ten years, the last time being in 1989 in the French nursing home where Beckett would die later that year. This book is a record of those encounters. When they meet, it is often just after the playwright has directed - or Gussow has reviewed - one of Beckett's plays, so the talk is of actors and directors, the success or otherwise of various productions, and the general state of the theater, art, life - and tennis. None of these conversations has been published before, and they serve to show the reputedly austere author as modest, humorous, and open-minded but always precise and frequently revealing about his own work, which he discusses with great acuity. Rounding off the book are interviews with Beckett's chief collaborators and interpreters: among them Bert Lahr, Gogo in the first American Godot; Jack MacGowran and Billie Whitelaw, Beckett's own favorite actors; directors Mike Nichols and Deborah Warner; and Edward Beckett, his nephew and literary executor.Synopsis
Mel Gussow, the longtime drama critic for The New York Times, has put together a revelatory book of conversations with the famously reticent author and his chief collaborators. In this revealing and poignant collection, Gussow paints a portrait of Samuel Beckett, the novelist and playwright whose body of work is unmatched for its intensity and cohesiveness. Although Beckett never allowed an interview, he did talk informally with Gussow over a ten-year period. Conversations with and about Beckett includes those encounters, with talk of actors, directors, the general state of the theater, art, life -- and tennis. The conversations, previously unpublished, show the reputedly austere author as modest, humorous, and open-minded but always precise and revealing about his own work, which he discusses with great acuity.