Casebook on Waiting for Godot. The Impact of Beckett's Modern Classic: Reviews, Reflections, Interpretations ed. by Ruby Cohn (review)

BOOK REVIEWS CASEBOOK ON WAITING FOR GODOT. THE IMPACT OF BECKETT'S MODERN CLASSIC: REVIEWS, REFLECTIONS, INTERPRETATIONS, Ruby Cohn (ed.) New York: Grove Press, 1967. 192 pp., $1.95. Professor Cohn has once again, as the hallowed reviewer's phrase has it (and how Sam would love to play with itl), put Beckett students deeply in her debt. Her authoritative analysis of Beckett's humor, The Comic Gamut (Rutgers, 1962), and her enlightened editorship of the special numbers of Perspective (Autumn, 1959) and Modern Drama (December, 1966), are completed by the present anthology of reactions to Godot, 1953"1967. The catholicity and tolerance we had observed previously are active once again here. In the first section ("Impact") the dithyrambic is counterweighted by the skeptical, and in the second ("Interpretation") most critical approaches are represented . And throughout open house is kept to writers not only from Great Britain, Ireland, the United States and France, but also from Spain and Eastern Europe. And, last but not least, the acknowledged experts in the field (Duckworth, Kenner, Champigny, Harvey and Janvier) are balanced by two welcome newcomers (Sue-Ellen Case and John J. Sheedy) whose essays appear here for the first time. So, by judicious reprinting, translating and commissioning, Ruby Cohn has assembled an indispensable collection of responses to a great modem classic. Those who would still, even in 1969, deny Waiting for Godot that description, must surely be convinced by this gathering. The Reporter's withering dismissal ("typical of the self-delusion of which certain intellectuals are capable," p. 30) is magnificently answered by Norman Mailer's characteristically honest-and pugnacious -climb-down in The Village Voice ("for an artist to attack another, and to do it on impulse, is a crime, and for the first time in months I have been walking around with a very clear sense of guilt," p. 70). And Mailer is right in his revised evaluation, however much (or little) one may disagree with his interpretation . Nowhere (except, tangentially, in her introduction) does Ruby Cohn intervene in this debate which she chairs so ably, and so discreetly. Her comment is implicit , in her choices and in their juxtaposition. Anyone who has led a seminar composed of intelligent people will know what a rare and difficult art hers is. It being understood what a useful and fascinating book this is, its usefulness and fascination can only now be illustrated by quotation. Spontaneous, and concentrated , responses like these here collected may contain much bone, but the marrow is succulent: "Such dramatic progress as there is, is not toward a climax, but toward a perpetual postponement" (Harold Hobson, p. 27); "Over the whole play lies a great and sad compassion" (Hobson, p. 29); and "Like many modern plays, Waiting for Godot is undramatic but highly theatrical" (Eric Bentley, p. 61). Of course there are omissions which the editor possibly regrets as much as anyone , but the essential is here. Particularly important are the reactions of prac99 100 MODERN DRAMA May tieing writers: Anouilh, Salacrou, Robbe-Grillet, and Thornton Wilder (as quoted by Alan Schneider). These men were not deceived: "as important as the opening of Pirandello in Paris in 1923" (Anouilh, p. 13); "Tennessee Williams regards Godot as one of the greatest plays of modern times" (Alan Levy, p. 7'7); and so on. If Beckett was upset by Miami (which is unlikely) he must have been gratified by the instant, wholehearted and passionate accolade of his peers. Of almost equal interest are the attitudes of actors and directors. Having assisted in a production, I sympathize with Peter Bull's lament that "an identical cue kept recurring every few pages of the script, so that it was remarkably easy to leave out whole chunks of the play" (p. 40). And it is hard not to agree with Alan Simpson, the Dublin producer, that Beckett is wrong in insisting on "Nothing to be done" rather than on "It's no good" as a translation of "Rien afaire" (P.45). Beckett doesn't make it exactly easy for his players and directors, but this is the necessary intransigence of genius. Without Beckett's we should not have Godot; nor, for that matter, should...