Staging plays

The concept of dramatic production which emerges through the works of Samuel Beckett and his practice as a director of his own plays seems openly antagonistic to those which have dominated twentieth-century assumptions. The ideas of the Russian director and theorist Stanislavski, and others such as Grotowski, have so colonised our understanding of theatre and acting practice that they have come to assume the status of laws of nature. Yet Beckett challenges both the role of the actor and the role of the director. In their place, he developed a different model of theatre practice, on which attempted to achieve a unified effect, with the actors, director and all other components subordinated to an expression inherent within and structured by the play text itself.