Here are the readings for this Wednesday, November 5th. Please read Texts for Nothing 4, by Samuel Beckett, then the 2 Marjorie Perloff articles linking Beckett, exile, and Wittgenstein. Finally, take a look at the 1973 San Quentin Drama Workshop production (7 minutes) of Beckett’s Not I. The San Quentin group, a combination of inmates at the prison and dramatists, including Beckett himself, is considered to this day one of the most inventive drama collectives that has come out of the United States. Beckett himself said that inmates at San Quentin staged the best version of Endgame he’d seen. So, as you read these articles and Beckett, do think about the implications of an artist’s collective literally, or, maximally imprisoned. This will be where Wednesday’s lecture is heading.
http://www.samuel-beckett.net/Text4Nothing4.html
http://www.samuel-beckett.net/PerloffBeckettsWar.html