Sails of the Herring Fleet: Essays on Beckett (Theater: Theory/Text/Performance)

Reflections on Samuel Beckett by renowned director and theorist Herbert Blau | Sails of the Herring Fleet traces esteemed director and theorist Herbert Blau's encounters with the work of Samuel Beckett. Blau directed Beckett's plays when they were still virtually unknown, and for more than four decades has remained one of the leading interpreters of his work. In addition to now-classic essays, the collection includes early program notes and two remarkable interviews — one from Blau's experience directing Waiting for Godot at San Quentin prison, and one from his last visit with Beckett, just before the playwright's death. Herbert Blau is Byron W. and Alice L. Lockwood Professor of the Humanities, University of Washington. "This book brings together essays by Herbert Blau, one of the leading interpreters of the work of Samuel Beckett. The pieces are arranged chronologically, beginning in the 1950s, and trace more than four decades of Blau's encounters with Beckett, from early productions of his plays through the remarkable series of theoretical writings that, in the vicissitudes of perception, seem to merge with Beckett's voice. In addition to these now-classic essays on Beckett's prose and drama, the collection includes a poignant introduction with elements of a memoir and two recent pieces that reflect on the paradoxically enlivening project of Beckett's notorious despair, the giving birth "astride of a grave" or, in the insatiable writing itself, "the accusative of inexistence.""--Jacket 'Sails of the Herring Fleet' traces director and theorist Herbert Blau's encounters with Samuel Beckett. Blau directed Beckett's plays when they were virtually unknown and has remained a leading interpreter of Becket's work over four decades.