University of Redlands > Academics > College of Arts & Sciences > Undergraduate Studies > Theatre Arts > Department Productions > Department Productions 2008-2009 > Beckett Shorts

Beckett Shorts

By Samuel Beckett

Nov. 19-22

Director: Chris Beach
Scenic Designer: Snezana Petrovic
Costume Designer: Nephelie Andonyadis
Lighting Designer: Trevor Norton  
Sound Designer: Heather Ingram
Guest Designer: Renee Azenaro 
Technical Director: Daniel Cork 
Stage Manager: Tessa Randall 
Assistant Stage Manager: Rebecca Spira 

The University of Redlands Theatre Arts Department presents An Evening of Beckett Shorts, five short plays by Pulitzer Prize winning novelist and playwright Samuel Beckett. Known as an existential vaudevillian, Beckett’s plays study human frustration and patience with the pursuit of some higher purpose, finding humor in our most constrained circumstances.

Best known for his longer plays--Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Krapps Last Tape and Happy Days--Beckett also wrote over 20 short plays. Some of these short plays are only 35 seconds in length, yet all of them pack a fascinating theatrical wallop. If you can imagine two women and a man buried in urns up to their necks judging past infidelities, or a pair of suspended lips desperately speaking to avoid disappearance altogether, you begin to glimpse Beckett’s unique theatrical world.

These works render a kind of “articulate speechlessness” about the human condition and its uncertain place in existence. These plays are less about something and are purely something in and of their selves. The famous Irish playwright, Brendan Behan, said, “I don’t know what Beckett’s plays are about, but I know I like them. I don’t know what a swim in the ocean is about, but I know I like the rush of water over me.”

Breath:
No Actors

Come and Go:

Play:

Footfalls

Not I: