Brenda Bruce (1918-96), seen here as Winnie in the British première of Happy Days at the Royal Court Theatre, London, November 1962. Beckett had come over from Paris for three weeks to assist George Devine, the director and founder of the English Stage Company. Winnie is buried in a mound of earth, up to her waist in Act I and up to her neck in Act II. Interview with JK.
I’d never met George Devine, but he rang my agent and said that he had this play by Samuel Beckett and would I read it quickly, as he would like me to do it and my agent said: ‘Yes, when is it starting?’ And it was within about ten days, so I immediately thought ‘I see, so who is sick’, you know, that’s to say I clearly wasn’t the first choice. They sent me the script and I read it, having seen Waiting for Godot and so on, but I’d never studied these works at all. And I read it with all the dot, dot, dots … dot, dot, dots and so on … ‘she lifts hand … puts hand to bag … opens bag …’ and I thought: I do wish authors wouldn’t do that, you know, it’s so maddening. They don’t need to. It’s like Bernard Shaw who says ‘She blushes scarlet’. But I thought this is extraordinary, having shown it to my then husband and he said ‘Well I think you’ll have to do that’. It was only later that I discovered that Joan [Plowright, Lady Olivier] had been asked to do it and then found she was pregnant and said: ‘I don’t want to sit on that lavatory stool, you know, for hours.’* So that’s why it was such a late call. I only had about four days of preparation and didn’t rehearse with George at all alone until we got rid of Sam. [Beckett left rehearsals for a few days because he found that he was putting too much pressure on the actress.] And if I ever said to Sam: ‘What does that mean?’ he used to say: ‘Tis of no consequence’! And just when I thought I’m not getting anything that he wants me to do, one day, I finally burst into tears. It was rather like, you know, if you’re about to have a bit of breakdown or be ill and someone says: ‘How are you?’ and you go ‘Oh, boo-hoo …’ And I went into rehearsal one day and George said: ‘Hi, you OK?’ and I went ‘Aaaaahhhh’ and out it all came. And I remember getting myself into a terrible state and saying to Beckett: ‘You should get Peter Sellers and then he’d do an imitation of you doing an imitation of Winnie, and then you’d get what you want.’ I mean, I was in such a state. Sam couldn’t understand that because I’d read it I didn’t necessarily know it. He did not understand the acting process.
George Devine could see increasingly that I was trying terribly to get everything right but as to giving a performance, I mean, I couldn’t work. I couldn’t explain to Beckett that it has to come out of one’s working of the part. I was so alone. If I said: ‘What do you think she’s thinking here, Sam? Why is she reacting? Why does she suddenly go into “Fear no more the heat of the sun”? Answer: ‘Tis of no consequence.’ I think that nowadays as an older person I might say: ‘Well then, why the hell did you write it?’ you know. I wouldn’t actually. I would still be terrified of him, I’m sure. He wasn’t giving me time to work. I daren’t open my mouth.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t nice to me. Very early in rehearsal I discovered that he hadn’t seen Joan [Plowright] either, so then I didn’t feel quite so bad. He was lovely though. One fell in love with him, you see, and this angelic smile and you thought ‘Oh’. Then he took me to buy the glasses [that Winnie wears], so we had quite a jolly couple of hours buying the specs that had to be absolutely right. And then this hat which was nothing like the other girls wore at all because they all had little Saatchi hairdos and little flowered hats. No. I’ve still got it at home, with feathers coming out of it but the brim’s cut off and a sort of gingery felt crown. Then one had the sort of evening dress, a boned thing. But acting Winnie was a terrifying experience. Because if you dry with that stuff, you see, you can’t just go back and pick it up. If you drop a line with Sam’s stuff, you are lost.
During the run I used to ring Sam because people would walk out and it always amazed me because he was right there in Paris and the receiver was picked up immediately; you know, you got straight through to him and I would say, ‘Somebody walked out last night’ and he would say: ‘Good, that’s great’, you know. He loved it. So I never got any sympathy about that.
Jocelyn Herbert
Jocelyn Herbert (1917-2003). Influential British theatre designer, daughter of the writer A. P. Herbert. A very close friend of Samuel Beckett, she worked extensively at the Royal Court Theatre in London, designing all of Beckett’s productions staged there. She also worked in opera and film. After the breakdown of her marriage to Anthony Lousada, she lived with the founder of the English Stage Company, George Devine. Interview with JK.
It was a bit difficult, I remember, our first meeting because Sam didn’t like the colour of the set [Jocelyn Herbert was responsible for getting Jacques Noel’s set made in England for the première of Fin de partie (Endgame) in French atthe Royal Court Theatre, London, in 1957]; it was a kind of dark grey. I must say it seemed quite suitable. I remember that, once I had read Endgame, I said to George [Devine, the Royal Court director and her partner], I don’t know how anyone could go on living having written this play. And at some point, I don’t know whether we were having a drink, we talked about the play and I remember repeating this to Sam, with some trepidation. I was very nervous of him, of his reputation.
George had this immense respect and love for Sam. And gradually we both did; we came to love Sam, as you do automatically, you can’t help it. I became less frightened of him, as I got to know him better, and was able to say if I didn’t think something was right or I didn’t agree with him.
The thing was that, always with Endgame, I think it was terribly difficult to retain that certain strange black humour and keep the rhythm. And that was one of the things that George [who played Hamm] and Jackie MacGowran [who played Clov] did. They used to rehearse it in the car. I used to fetch them sometimes. And they had elements of it that were hilarious in a strange way. But when Sam came over, that was all stopped, completely stopped. And in a funny way it put a bit of a blight on that show. I know George was always utterly petrified [when he acted the role of Hamm]. I used to go and put the rug over him and the handkerchief over his eyes and he would be absolutely shaking like a jelly …
I think a lot of [Sam’s relationship] with Suzanne [his wife from 1961 until her death in '89] was gratitude and loyalty and I think that he felt remorse for the fact that he had so many friends whom he got drunk with. She didn’t drink. And he had after all endless other women. And when people say to me he was a saint I say: ‘Oh no, he wasn’t a saint at all. And thank God he wasn’t.’
[An evening spent with Beckett and Eugène Ionesco in Paris.] It must have been Boxing Night, we - Sam and Ionesco and my daughter and George and I - all had dinner at the Coupole, and we must have had it rather early because then we went on to see [Ionesco’s play] Le Roi se meurt. And Sam came and Ionesco and we were all there and in the first interval Sam whispered to George: ‘I think I’ll go and meet you at the end’. So he disappeared and we all sat through this play. It wasn’t very well done, to be honest, and then after we came out Sam said: ‘Come on, let’s all go and have a drink,’ and Ionesco said: ‘Ah non, je ne peux pas’ [‘Oh no, I can’t’]. So, rather sadly, we said goodbye to Ionesco and we all set off. It was Boxing Night and Sam said: ‘I know a good bar,’ and we went to one bar after another until they closed and we ended up about six in the morning at the Falstaff. We got there by taxi, finally, and there were all these iron bars up and I said: ‘But it’s shut.’ Sam got out and rapped on the windows and the door opened and the grilles opened and it was crowded with people drinking and eating bacon and eggs. And all this evening, all the night through, the conversation had been as to whether it was possible to write a play with no action. Could you be only dramatic in words? And out of that came Not I. That was what he was thinking about at that time. I can’t remember what date that was.
Billie Whitelaw
Billie Whitelaw (1932-). British actress known for a wide variety o
f stage and film parts, who worked on many occasions with Samuel Beckett, being directed by him in Footfalls (1976), which he wrote with Whitelaw in mind, and Happy Days (1979). She also acted in Play (1964) (when she first got to know Beckett) and played Mouth in the British premiere of Not I, directed by Anthony Page, with much help from Samuel Beckett. The photograph shows Beckett rehearsing Billie Whitelaw in Footfalls, Royal CourtTheatre, 1976. Interview with JK.
Not I
[In Not I, Royal Court Theatre, London, 1973, directed by Anthony Page, assisted by Samuel Beckett, Billie Whitelaw was covered in a hood, except for her mouth, shrouded in black and placed high up in a chair on a podium. It was a very demanding role to play and one day she collapsed.]
Anthony used to say to Beckett, ‘Go and talk to her next door.’ He knew when I wanted to talk to Sam. Sam and I used to work in the afternoon at home - at my home. We used to go back and say it together, all the time. But he didn’t know it word for word I’m delighted to say! He would sometimes make mistakes and I would say, ‘No, there you are, you see,’ even though he thought he did, with great moans and cries. But in fact it was the perfectly normal theatrical trauma that goes on when you’re doing a difficult piece. I don’t look back on the rehearsals of Not I and say, Oh my God, how dreadful’, at all. It was just getting the damned thing on its feet. You have to get the damn thing right and I don’t care which way. Now I would break any rule, if there are rules, to get what Sam wanted; even my back would break to get what he wanted.
My son, Matthew, was recovering from meningitis. Sometimes he developed night terrors which were quite awful and sometimes I was up all night; it was no secret. Sam’s first question in the morning was, ‘How’s Matthew?’ Always the first question: ‘How’s Matthew?’ And he would bring little presents for Matthew. He gave him - this seven-year-old child - a Meccano set meant for a boy of thirteen and his own chess book, because Sam was a great chessplayer. ‘Does Matthew play chess?’ And he gave him his chess book turned down at the corner. I said, ‘Well I don’t think he’s actually as good as this.’
I’ll tell you what, in my emotional memory, happened when I collapsed at rehearsal. It was nothing to do with Sam, nothing to do with Not I; it was to do with sensory deprivation. If you are blindfolded and have a hood over your face, you hyperventilate, you suffer from sensory deprivation. It will happen to you. And I hung on and hung on until I couldn’t any longer. I just went to pieces because I was convinced I was like an astronaut tumbling out into space. And I thought I can’t be tumbling out in space, but I am tumbling out in space and that’s when I fell down; I couldn’t go on. They lifted me down and, I think Jocelyn [Herbert, the designer] or Robbie [Hendry, the stage manager] or somebody, got me a brandy and milk and I remember Sam walked down the central aisle of the Royal Court saying, Oh Billie, what have I done to you, what have I done to you?’ And I drank the brandy and the milk and said, ‘OK, that’s another barrier cracked. Back up in there, but can we have a little slit in there and a little blue light so that I know I’m here, because I can see that?’ So the reason for the breakdown had nothing to do with the play or the rehearsal, it had to do with the pure technicality of being blindfolded, hooded, speaking at great speed and hyperventilating.
Footfalls
[In Footfalls, Royal Court Theatre, London 1976, when she was directed by Beckett, she played an isolated, tormented young woman, a ghostly presence who paces relentlessly up and down on the stage.]*
In Footfalls, there were no vast, extravagant movements: the slightest little thing had an effect. We spent hours on the walking up and down, and hours getting the relationship of the arm and the hand and the bringing down of the hand from the throat and how far this should go to the elbow. It was all very carefully done. What is interesting is that what Beckett is doing requires far more concentration from the actor, to add to his own enormous concentration.
When I was doing Not I, I felt like an athlete crashing through barriers, but also like a musical instrument playing notes … In Footfalls, I felt like a moving, musical Edvard Munch painting - one felt like all three. And, in fact, when Beckett was directing Footfalls, he was not only using me to play the notes, but I almost felt that he did have the paint brush out and was painting, and, of course, what he always has in the other pocket is the rubber, because as fast as he draws a line in, he gets out that enormous india-rubber and rubs it out until it is only faintly there.
Not so Happy Days
[In Happy Days at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 1979, when Billie Whitelaw was once again directed by Beckett, she played Winnie, incarcerated in her mound of earth - up to the waist in Act I and up to the neck in Act II. Beckett changed the text after Billie Whitelaw had already learned the role and this put a great strain on their usually close relationship. Duncan Scott, who was involved with Jack Raby in lighting the production, offers an insider’s view of Beckett’s reactions to the controversy.]
Billie Whitelaw in Footfalls, Royal Court Theatre, London, 1976.
Duncan Scott* The rehearsals for Happy Days, according to Sam, had been going badly from the beginning. He thought he had been pushing Billie too hard and too fast. Now she seemed unduly nervous and was complaining that she couldn’t cope with what she was being asked to do. Even worse, she was accusing him of confusing her, of giving her too many notes, and of contradicting himself. ‘I don’t understand’, he said, ‘and I don’t know what to do to help her.’ He paused, then exclaimed incredulously, ‘Me! Contradict myself!’ But added, almost immediately, in an exaggerated Dublin accent, ‘So I thought: keep your trap shut. Let them get on with it.’ And so he went for a walk around World’s End, past the Royal Hospital, as far as Thomas More’s orchard, and finished up in a quiet pub in Old Church Street, intending to stay away from rehearsals altogether for a couple of days.
We went on to discuss the possible difficulties Billie was having. I told Sam that she had confided in me that she would rather be doing Not I again - which I found difficult to believe, in view of the terror she felt during each performance - but Sam said that he too thought Happy Days was the more difficult play. He attributed her nervousness to the fact that it was the first time she had appeared in a play of his that had been presented before, and that she was probably dreading the inevitable comparisons. She was said to be continually ringing up her predecessors, notably Peggy Ashcroft and Brenda Bruce, to discuss the play with them.
Now that he had been able to express his hurt, Sam seemed anxious to take the blame himself: ‘I’ve always been aware of the imperfections of Happy Days, but it is only recently that I have realized how much I dislike it: particularly the first act.’
Billie Whitelaw in Happy Days, Royal Court Theatre, London, 1979.
Billie Whitelaw At the end with the Waltz from the Merry Widow, I said to Sam one day at rehearsal, I can’t think how it goes’. So Sam sang it to me and I just copied the way he sang it from then on. His quavering, weak, reedy voice sounded so marvellous, I thought ‘I’ll use that’.
Eh Joe
[Eh Joe, filmed for television with Klaus Herm as Joe and Billie Whitelaw as the Voice in 1988.]
Billie Whitelaw For Eh Joe, I went over to Paris [to rehearse Voice with Beckett] and saw Sam. We read it together. I found it unbearably moving but we read it and he kept on hitting my nose - which is neither here nor there, very sweet - and we read it through and he kept on saying as always, ‘No colour, no colour’ and ‘slow’, I mean slower than I’ve ever known him want me to go before, even slower than Footfalls: absolutely flat; absolutely on a monotone. And when he was saying it himself, he actually corrected himself, ‘No, no, too much colour, too much colour’, to himself, not to me. ‘Like the title of a book about Samuel Beckett’, I said, ‘No, No, Too Much Colour!'
Sam’s chief characteristic as a director was his compassion, a general love of his fellow human beings, the feeling that he very much wants you to get it right. He will not let you go out and give a sterile
performance - this is marvellously comforting. And, although he is very particular and meticulous and insists that it be right, he is the only director with whom, when he is in the theatre, I feel unafraid and safe. I wish he would be there sometimes on a first night, but I know that he never sees one of his plays in front of an audience. It might seem as if his precision and insistence on the minutest detail should totally restrict the actor; but it doesn’t. It gives you a marvellous freedom, because within this meticulous framework and I suppose surrounded by this feeling of compassion and safety, there is freedom to experiment.
I think a lot of actors and a lot of people think that Beckett ties the actor up, that you are not allowed to move, that you just have to obey him. Obviously you listen to him, but within this framework, you can expand. Certainly I feel a marvellous freedom working with him. With Beckett, you can’t cut corners. It is an immense privilege and good fortune to have worked with the man. But the most productive thing of all is to work within a context of love and compassion. That is the most fertile thing in the world.
The Schiller-Theater, Berlin
Beckett with (from left to right) Horst Bollman, Stefan Wigger, Klaus Herm and Walter Asmus, Schiller-Theatre, Berlin, 1975.
Warten auf Godot (Waiting for Godot)
Produced at the Schlossparktheater, Berlin, September 1953, directed by Karl Heinz Stroux.
Beckett Remembering / Remembering Beckett Page 17
