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Beckett and ShakespeareAuthor(s): Normand BerlinSource: The French Review, Vol. 40, No. 5 (Apr., 1967), pp. 647-651Published by: American Association of Teachers of FrenchStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/384670Accessed: 28/08/2008 19:09

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Beckett and Shakespeare

by Normand Berlin

BY AN INTERESTING CHAIN OF CIRCUMSTANCES, modern audiences have been exposed to a view of Shakespeare reflected in a mirror held by an English director, fashioned by a Polish critic, and reflecting at the same time an Irishman writing his plays in French. Peter Brook's production of King Lear was inspired, as he himself claims, by Jan Kott's book Shakespeare, our Contemporary, which attempts to bring together Beckett and Shakespeare as our contemporaries. Kott's book was highly praised by Martin Esslin, who was pleased with Kott's demonstration that Shakespeare's plays are "akin in their ultimate sense to the contemporary Theater of the Absurd." 1 It is to this statement that I wish to address myself.

One must agree with Esslin that Shakespeare and Beckett are "akin" if he means that both writers deal with the human condition, man's nature, man's mortality, the mystery of his existence. This is a kinship they share with all great dramatists. But after meeting on this common ground, Beckett and Shakespeare part ways. A close look at this parting reveals much about each dramatist.

Kott presents a number of specific comparisons between Beckett and Shakespeare-all suggesting that the world Beckett presents in Waiting for Godot and Endgame and the world Shakespeare presents in King Lear are similar. On the surface these similarities seem compelling. Among the most important are: Edgar and Gloucester, like many of Beckett's charac- ters, acting out a pantomime on stage-with Gloucester climbing up an imaginary cliff and falling from it; the failure of the suicide attempts of Gloucester, Vladimir, and Estragon; the similar statements on life of Pozzo and Edgar, and of Pozzo and Lear; the fact that both Lear and Estragon have shoes that pinch. But each of these aspects of action and language is controlled by a larger philosophical vision in each dramatist. Each, when seen as an intrinsic part of a dramatic whole, points not to similarities, but to essential differences.

Kott's comments on Gloucester's attempted suicide in the pantomimic 1 Martin Esslin, introduction to Jan Kott's Shakespeare, our Contemporary (New

York, 1964), p. xix.

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scene vi of Act IV are used to demonstrate that in King Lear we are dealing with the grotesque, "the theater of clowns," not with tragedy, "the theater of priests." But his discussion of the scene neglects its most important aspect-a dutiful son is leading his father away from despair. Edgar is, in effect, serving as his father's priest, curing him of a great Christian sin. He does this by directing and acting in a pantomime of his own devising in order to fool his father into hope. Because a mime is being enacted, Kott calls the performers clowns, philosophic buffoons. But the intent of the pantomimic climb up the cliff is charged with philosophic significance. Kott states that "the Shakespearean precipice at Dover . . is the abyss, waiting all the time. The abyss, into which one can jump, is every- where." 2 He stops there, for this is the kind of statement that brings Shakespeare very close to Beckett. We, however, cannot stop there-for Gloucester was saved from falling into the abyss; his experience has taught him what his son wished to teach him. His attitude toward the gods has changed. In short, something of significance has happened to Gloucester. The pantomime had a result. Henceforth, he says, he will "bear affliction," which he does, and when he dies, his heart bursts "smilingly." It is mis- leading to ally the suicide attempts of Vladimir and Estragon with Glouces- ter's. The failure of the tramps to commit suicide leads to no realization on their part. Their attempt has no relationship to any spiritual certainties. Their mime is absurd, because it is performed on a morally empty stage.

Pozzo, in his second appearance, when he has been ravaged by time, utters words which are filled with hopelessness: ... one day I went blind, one day we'll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second.... They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.

After quoting this passage, Kott says that "Shakespeare had said as much, in fewer words." "Men must endure / Their going hence, even as their coming hither; / Ripeness is all." Indeed, Shakespeare says "as much" when he succinctly depicts the life cycle, but he says more when he charges his statement with the word "endure." The notion of endurance is im- portant throughout King Lear; this statement, spoken by Edgar, is meant to cheer up his father, who wishes "to rot even here." Gloucester's simple answer to Edgar's statement-"And that's true too"-affirms the gift of man to endure, perhaps even to ripen to fulfillment. Pozzo's words contain no such idea. They superbly express the condition of humanity as felt by a man completely without hope.

Another statement by Pozzo is presented by Kott to demonstrate 2 Kott, p. 103.

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Pozzo's closeness to Lear. The blind Pozzo, like the blind Hamm in End- game, comes to "understand everything," says Kott, when he utters:

Pozzo: I woke up one fine day as blind as Fortune. VLAD.: And when was that? Pozzo: I don't know ... Don't question me! the blind have no notion of time.

The things of time are hidden from them too.

For Kott, Lear's words: "No rescue? What, a prisoner? I am even / The natural fool of fortune" seem to echo Pozzo's. But again, the words are part of a dramatic situation. Lear is frantically running away from the Gentleman sent by Cordelia, the child who redeems nature. He is not a prisoner; his statement here, like so many of his statements, stems from a mistaken view of the world around him. The "everything" that Pozzo understands is based on the truth of Beckett's world; the "everything" that Lear understands is nothing. He is not ready to open his eyes to a new aspect of nature; he cannot as yet see some of the positive values in a cruel world.

The shoes of Lear and Estragon pinch, Kott is happy to point out. I have been unable to find pinching of shoes in King Lear, but even if there were, the shoes, after all, would belong to different feet. And here, perhaps, is the clearest example of the danger of superimposing Beckett on Shake- speare. For Lear is a king, and Estragon is a tramp. The king may become a fool and madman, but he was a king when he first appeared on stage and he is a king when the play ends. His life is intrinsically connected with the life of the state and the world; he becomes a "ruined piece of nature"; his fall is the fall of the world, "the promised end." In short, he has a definite place in a spiritual landscape; he is a specific part of a world picture. And his journey through the play is a journey toward recognitions. Estragon is a tramp who never had, and never will have, shoes that fit. His life has no connection with a state or world. In fact, there is no specific state or world he can be part of. He does not go on a journey; he, with his friend, waits and whiles away the time.

By finding Beckett in Shakespeare, Kott transforms Shakespeare's characters into Beckett's. Edgar is most misunderstood because he, as disguised lunatic and naked beggar, fits most easily into a picture of the absurd and grotesque. Because of this, Kott denies Edgar the right to sustain "the gored state." "In King Lear there is no young and resolute Fortinbras to ascend the throne of Denmark.... In King Lear there will be no coronation. There is no one whom Edgar can invite to it." 3 But Edgar need invite no one, for he, as Shakespeare clearly indicates, will

8 Kott, p. 109.

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undertake the job of restoring the state. He, because of his symbolic disguise and his elemental life as Bedlam beggar, has gone on his own journey of suffering, which qualifies him to help restore harmony to a disordered world. The young man so easily duped in the beginning of the play becomes not only the wise philosopher of Lear's mad mind, but truly the wise philosopher of the play-"Ripeness is all."

Esslin's comments on Shakespeare in his influential book on the Theater of the Absurd point up the basic problem I have been discussing. He states that "... above all, there is in Shakespeare a very strong sense of the futility and absurdity of the human condition." 4 He quotes Gloucester's "As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; / They kill us for their sport." He, like Swinburne, believes this to be "Shakespeare's conception of life." This must be considered a faulty critical judgment, not only in connection with the other plays that Shakespeare wrote, where life is usually presented as a meaningful experience, but in connection with the very play containing the quotation. Gloucester himself realizes his error in making the statement, and it is the pantomimic scene at Dover, with which my discussion began, that helped him to realize his error. The statement is profoundly pessimistic, and applies neither to Shakespeare's conception of life nor to Beckett's-for both dramatists, meeting on that common ground, realize that life's questions perhaps have no answers, but that man must continue to ask the questions.

In his introduction to Kott's book, Esslin, applauding Kott's attempts to see Beckett in Shakespeare, states that "the proof of puddings ... is in the eating," for Kott's ideas spurred Peter Brook to guide Paul Scofield to "one of the finest performances within living memory." 5 Such a strong assertion demands qualification. The result of evoking Beckett to present Shakespeare is interesting, but not truthful to Shakespeare's intentions. By emphasizing the chaos and futility, and by diminishing, almost erasing, the positive values in the play, Brook has presented a Beckettian King Lear which possesses some stunning theatrical moments-especially the blind Gloucester, alone on stage, sitting and decaying, while the off-stage noises sound the chaos of the world-but in doing so he has taken away the grandeur that is Lear. This, of course, is why Scofield, a brilliant actor, was unable to move the audience in the last excruciating moments of the play. He was, throughout the production, closer to the hobo, waiting, than to the raging king, rushing along a path of destruction toward new aware- nesses. A fine performance, but essentially unsatisfying, not because of the acting itself, but rather because the acting served an idea of the play which made Lear a smaller man than Shakespeare intended.

Martin Esslin, The Theater of the Absurd (New York, 1961), p. 234. 6 Esslin, intro. to Kott, p. xix.

BECKETT - SHAKESPEARE

One cannot deny that there is in Shakespeare potential "Beckettism," for Shakespeare's plays contain a wide range of attitudes toward human existence. One can point, for example, to Macbeth's famous speech on life as "a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing" as an anticipation of the moods and ideas presented by Beckett. But when such a statement is made, it should carry with it an explanation-the kind of explanation that Kott and Esslin seem reluctant to provide. The Macbeth speech, by itself and expressing the mood of a character at a particular point in the play, does look forward to Beckett, but the play as a whole rejects the notion that man has no dignity, that life is absurd. For Shakespeare gives us the life-giving images connected with the gracious Duncan; he gives us a Malcolm who will heal and restore Scotland; and he presents a Macbeth whose sterile evil is destroyed by the forces of fertile vitality. The potential Beckettism, therefore, when fully investigated, becomes the object of a Shakespearean denial.

In Shakespeare we confront an action that moves, a story line, not only the progress of time but the use of time (for destruction and restoration), suffering which leads to recognitions. In Beckett we encounter frozen, static situations-one cannot move in an ashcan; one cannot hang oneself without strong rope. One day is not only like the next, it is the next. Shakespeare trusts language, allowing it to communicate meaning. Beckett uses language, but to show that there is no meaning to be communicated. Most important, and controlling all other points of comparison, the human condition is not absurd in Shakespeare. His vision in King Lear is dark, filled with anguish and madness and suffering, but it is not absurd. For absurdity attaches itself to characters who are small, who wait, who forever hear only themselves, who cannot communicate because there is nothing to communicate, who are spiritually empty, who, not being part of a world picture, are on the circumference of no circle. This is the vision which Beckett presents brilliantly. He is our contemporary.

UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS

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