You don’t have to be an academic to appreciate Samuel Beckett. Dr Anthony Uhlman, the convenor of the Samuel Beckett International Symposium, after Beckett; d’apres Beckett, makes that clear when he says that his three-year-old child can understand certain visual images in a Beckett play quite well.
For while the Dublin-born writer was interested in mathematics, philosophy and ideas of the spirit, he was also influenced by the likes of Charlie Chaplin and the brothers Marx.
As Dr Uhlman points out, Beckett’s influence, too, has extended beyond academic circles, into the realms of contemporary popular culture. The wider Western audience may not all have seen Waiting for Godot – the play described by a reviewer as one in which ‘nothing happens. Twice’ – however, the academic notes that television consumers around the world embraced American sitcom and ‘show about nothing’, Seinfeld, throughout the 1990s.
During that time, says Uhlman, Seinfeld‘s propulsion to cult status echoed, more broadly, the cult following created by Godot in Paris fifty years before.
Beckett established his international reputation early. Following the success of Waiting for Godot, he involved himself in the productions of his plays across Europe and the United States and, in 1969, was awarded the Nobel Prize.
Discussions about the man and his work have been held at regular intervals at various locations around the world. ‘There have been Beckett conferences on and off for years,’ comments Dr Uhlman. ‘Beckett didn’t like to go to them, but, in the early ’80s, he was asked to write a play for a conference held in [the US’] Ohio state. He did this, and the result was Ohio Impromptu, a short work which was as successful as any of his later plays.’
Given the writer’s international appeal, and the diversity among those who appreciate his work, it would seem fitting that the 2002 symposium – to be attended by an estimated 130 international scholars – should take place as part of Australia’s vibrant Sydney Festival, and in conjunction with performances of Waiting for Godot and Endgame, as well as the screening of Beckett on Film, featuring 19 of the great man’s plays.
Talks about Beckett should not be confined to the stuffy corridors of academia, nor restricted to specific geographical locations – because Beckett’s appeal was wider than that.
‘He didn’t just write plays,’ says Uhlman when asked about Beckett’s influence over such a diverse audience. ‘He would have seen himself as a “novelist”. He also wrote poetry, and went on to write radio plays and make a short film. But, in all those media, he was making some technical innovation. Beckett was influential on sound artists, for example, because of the technical elements he brought to his radio plays.’
The innovative use of visual imagery in Beckett’s writing is, according to Dr Uhlman, another key to understanding the writer’s broad appeal across media, culture and language differences.
‘He used images in a way that is different to how we normally expect… That’s another reason that he’s of interest to so many people across a lot of different fields. He was interested in philosophy and… mathematics… He worked on quite a high intellectual plane, but he also worked on quite straight visceral stuff. He used images that anyone can relate to, immediately.’
‘Of course, Beckett is very big in France, because he lived in France and much of his work was written in French,’ continues Uhlman, who also points out that Beckett played a hand in the shaping of the ideas of French philosophers Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. ‘And the Irish are obviously big on Beckett too, although, interestingly, [he] wasn’t quite as big as some of the other [writers] in the Irish imagination, because he wrote about Ireland in a fairly abstract way.’
Certainly, a number of the scholars expected in attendance at the conference will come from France, Ireland and the UK.
‘Steven Connor is one of the keynotes and he is quite a distinguished UK scholar,’ comments Uhlman. ‘Mary Bryden [President-elect of the Samuel Beckett Society] is another respected British academic, and Gerry Dukes [from the University of Limerick, in Ireland] is a keynote.’ Additional British and Irish scholars include Steven Barfield, Garin Dowd and Graham Saunders from the UK, as well as Sean Kennedy and Paul Davies from Ireland. French feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray will also join in the discussion, via video-conference, from France.
However, conference delegates will also come from further afield: ‘We have delegates coming from Iran, Jordan, India, and Israel,’ Uhlman points out, citing also a number of delegates from Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and South Africa.
‘And the issue of why Beckett has appealed to so many people in so many different cultures will be drawn out at the conference. There are all sorts of ways of approaching Beckett. Or you can just go and experience it… and it is really the experience of Beckett that hooks people around the world.’
By holding the symposium in conjunction with the Sydney Festival, Uhlman indicates a hope that some of the conjecture surrounding Beckett’s work will also be demystified.
‘Notions of “high” and “low” culture come with Beckett,’ he says. ‘People think Beckett is very serious. So, [Sydney theatre company] Belvoir Street’s production [of Godot] is going to bring back the comic element. A lot of the humour is straight slapstick, which Beckett continued in his later plays. He certainly had an interest in popular culture.’
The public will have an opportunity to join in the discussion about Beckett at a public lecture on the writer at the Sydney Town Hall, and Uhlman feels that this is an important opportunity for locals to learn more about the legacy of the playwright.
‘Beckett has intrinsic value because his work allows us to think about who we are,’ he says. ‘The Sydney Festival program gives the public a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn about the man who brought a new dimension to writing and theatre, and his legacy to the arts. He’s changed the way people see and understand the world.’
‘After Beckett’ runs in Sydney, January 6-9, 2003. Further information is available online at: www.uws.edu.au/uws/conferences/beckett/
