Beckett's Laboratory

Offering<i></i>fresh studies of Samuel Beckett in pre-production in rehearsal as an innovator of the script form and as a speculative director and designer <i>Beckett's Laboratory</i> reconsiders Beckett's stringent approach to stage direction through the lens of the laboratory and reveals his experimentalism with stage representation and composition. Wakeling argues that acknowledging Beckett's experimental processes from their composition to their reception is crucial to understanding the innovative representations of humanity that emerged at different stages in Beckett's practice.<br/><br/>Repositioning Beckett's performance oeuvre in relation to philosophy Wakeling draws upon post-dramatic symbolist materialist and post-structural understandings of theatre performance to reappraise Beckett's plays as a composition for performance. The philosophical underpinnings of Beckett's practices are explored through an eclectic mix of familiar and unexplored contemporary theatre productions and films of Beckett's works including <i>Not I</i> <i>Nacht und Träume</i> <i>Happy Days Footfalls</i> and <i>Catastrophe</i>. <br/> <br/><i>Beckett's Laboratory</i> is a provocative examination of Beckett's experimentalism with the human spectacle and his playful reliance upon the interpretative powers of the actors and audience.