The Body in the Body of Beckett's Theater

Abstract

Much of what we loosely call Samuel Beckett's theatrical innovation, his contribution to the modernist or postmodernist stage, has constituted an assault on theater, or at least on theatrical convention. Theater would be an especially tempting target for Beckett's deconstructions since it is the one literary genre mediated by the body. The paradoxes of the staged body, as figure or figment, visible or invisible, on or off stage, corporeal or incorporeal, and in the later teleplays, real or electronic, are explored and exploited from his first produced play to his final teleplays.