Beckett’s work to live on in centenary bonanza

COUNTRIES around the world are to hold events to mark the centenary of the birth of Irish Nobel Prize-winning playwright Samuel Beckett in a bid to ensure his work lives on.

Michael Colgan, director of the Gate Theatre who is chairing the Beckett Centenary Committee, said his work would be performed in Dublin, London, France, Japan and 10 US cities.

Mr Colgan said performances of the writer’s work during April’s Beckett Centenary Festival would be a chance for new audiences to access the man behind plays such as Waiting for Godot, Endgame and Footfalls.

“The other thing is for Ireland to just stake its claim and say we have given birth to great literary giants and when their centenary comes along we should celebrate them,” he said.

Mr Colgan said he felt the best way to celebrate Beckett was to expose the work of the playwright, novelist and poet, who was born in Foxrock, Co Dublin on April 13, 1906.

In the late 1930s, Beckett settled in Paris where his most famous work, Waiting for Godot, was performed in 1953. The shy playwright, who wrote most of his major work in French, received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.

“We feel the centenary really belongs to Ireland inc, as opposed to just a theatre at the end of O’Connell Street,” Mr Colgan said.

“We are doing nine plays, and one television play. They are chosen because they are accessible ... [and] there is great humour ... and great poignancy in them.”

Edward Beckett, the nephew of the writer, said his family were excited by the Government-backed centenary events, including the plays set to take place in Dublin’s Gate Theatre and London’s Barbican.

British actor John Hurt, who will star in Krapp’s Last Tape at the Gate in April, said: “He is a genuinely serious playwright, he talks about the human condition, and how we relate to life, the world and each other.”