The theatricality of the living pictures in Samuel Beckett’s theatre: a Neo- Avant-guard perspective

Authors

  • Ștefana Pop-Curșeu Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Keywords:

Samuel Beckett, tableau vivant, Pop Art, New Realism, theatricality

Abstract

Samuel Beckett’s theatrical work has been quite often compared, especially in the recent literature, to the abstract directions in modern painting and  sculpture, but there was no attempt to analyse its relationship to its contemporary artistic movements taking their roots in the historical Avant-guards. The  present article proposes to revisit Samuel Beckett’s theatre through a new perspective, mainly that of the theatricality of the living pictures (tableaux  vivants) present in his stage conception, through the bias of European and American Pop Art, Assemblagism, New Realism and other Neo-Avant-guard  artistic movements. Reconsidering thus an essential moment of theatre history, with the instruments of theatre iconography, we try to open new doors in  the understanding of his work as a playwright and as a stage director, by replacing it in the right context of visual and performing arts.

Author Biography

Ștefana Pop-Curșeu, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Ştefana POP-CURŞEU, Ph.D at the University of Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle, in Theatre and Scenic Arts,  is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Theatre and Television of „Babeş-Bolyai” University Cluj-  Napoca, where she teaches antique and medieval theatre history and modern theory of theatre. She  published many articles in the domain of Theatre, in France and Romania. She translated alone or in  collaboration with Ioan Pop-Curşeu a dozen of books from French to Romanian, such as Samuel  Beckett, Sfârșit de partidă, 2000, L.-F. Céline, Convorbiri cu Profesorul Y, 2006, Pascal Vrebos, Avarul II,  2010, Gilles Deleuze, Imaginea-mişcare, 2012), and is author of the book: Pour une théâtralité picturale. Bruegel et Ghelderode en jeux de miroirs, Casa Cărţii de Ştiinţă, Cluj-Napoca, coll. Teatru-Eseuri, 2012.  She wrote in collaboration with Ioan Pop-Curșeu two theatre scripts and directed two performances  based on these scripts (Killed by Friendly Fire, 2014 and Every Tzara has his Dada 2016). She is also,  since 2011, the artistic director of The National Theatre in Cluj-Napoca.

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Published

2022-01-28

How to Cite

Pop-Curșeu, Ștefana. (2022). The theatricality of the living pictures in Samuel Beckett’s theatre: a Neo- Avant-guard perspective. Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai - Dramatica, 62(2), 143–159. Retrieved from https://dramatica.ro/index.php/j/article/view/207