Samuel Beckett's Theatre: Life Journeys by Katharine Worth (review)

114 REVIEWS between Synge and Beckett, and Beckett's ironically postmodern view of the world was anticipated by O'Casey, who also shared an epically estranged view of that same world with someone like Brecht. The final chapters of the book make a strong case for the status of Tom Murphy, whose A Crucial Week is described as having "formal resemblances to pre-Brechtian German Expressionism" (196) and whose Bailegangaire is convincingly analysed as "one of the strongest, deepest and most resonant plays to have come out of Ireland in this last quarter of the century" (241). . This section also includes interesting observations on Frank MacGuinness's Observe the Sons 01 Ulster Marching Towards the Somme and Sebastian Barry's The Steward 01 Christendom in their empathetic attempts to understand the political "other." The author remarks on the "perceived affinity between Irish and Russian drama" (266) and the efforts made by modern Irish dramatists to rewrite, adapt, or translate the work of Chekhov, Tolstoy, Turgenev , and Ostrovsky in terms that still seek to represent Ireland. All in all, this is a bold and imaginative book that deserves to be pondered by anyone interested in Irish drama of the past hundred years or so. KATHARINE WORTH. Samuel Beckett's Theatre: LileJourneys. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. 192, illus. $60.00 (Hb). Reviewed by Lois Oppenheim, Montclair State University Oxford University Press continues to publish Beckett studies of great interest. Enoch Brater's Beyond Minimalism: The Drama in the Text, Christopher Ricks's Beckett's Dying Words, and Mary Bryden's Samuel Beckett and Music are now followed by this more personal account of Beckett's theatre wherein the reader is brought very close both to the playwright's practice of his art and to Worth's own experience of it as producer-director. "Life Journeys " refers at once to the "self-writing" with which any reader of Beckett is familiar (what H. Porter Abbott terms "autography" in his 1996 book Beckett Writing Beckett: The Author in the Autograph) and to the "light Beckett's fictions cast on our lives" (3), on the journeys immediately recognized as universal . Worth tells us from the start that her approach to the book evolved over time to allow more of her own discussions with Beckett in the last decade and a half of his life to play into the analysis of the work. That direction proves felicitous, for not only does it enhance her sense of authority (not necessary, but enriching nonetheless), but it reveals Beckett's deep humanism and Worth's wish to pay testimony to it in her writing. Nine chapters trace the trajectory from solitude to company (that of the dead as well as the living). The first, "Cosmic Scenery," has a distinctly Bachelardian quality to it: "The Road," "The Room," and "The Play of the Light Reviews 115 and the Dark" are subdivisions that distill the visual power of setting over evocative imagery. The interplay of theatrical and cosmic scenery yields to a rich discussion of Beckett's visual sensibility that situates his artistic sources and personal preferences while citing production problems and resolutions (his own and others'). The discussion is comprehensive, extending from the early plays for the theatre to Beckett's use of non-print media (film and television ). "Heaven, Hell, and the Space Between" (the second chapter) and "Lifelines : Humour and Homely Sayings" (the third) account for the narrative space of our "life journeys" - the Void and its accompanying nightmares, visions of judgement, rituals, and boredom - and the irony and humor that save us from despair. Thematically speaking, there is nothing much new here - how could there be? Yet, Worth particularizes the existential anxieties and the communal aspects of the human imagination most refreshingly. Indeed, her discussion of their mise ell scene is intriguing and informative, her emphasis on the actuality of the theatrical experience compelling. The "personal" and anecdotal evidence, in other words, fully serves its purpose. I cite just one example: much has been written on Beckett's religious and anti-religious overtones and references. Of Come and Go, Worth asks whether a particular reference to God is merely "conventional usage, meaning nothing very much...