Beyond Minimalism Beckett's Late Style in the Theater [Paperback]

Beyond Minimalismexplores Beckett's drama of the '70s and '80s, examining the ways in which play text and performance merge through the playwright's poetic idiom. Beginning withNot Iand continuing throughCatastropheandWhat Where, Brater examines the plays not only as texts but also as theater pieces. Discussing the technical and aesthetic demands that productions likeFootfallsandRockabymake on actor, director, and spectator, Brater clarifies the essential relationship between Beckett's achievement in the context of the breakdown of genre, performance poetry, and the electronic intrusion of the recorded voice as a new theatrical convention. In the course of his analysis Brater demonstrates how Beckett's late style in the theater both continues and clarifies the dramatic lyricism that is the hallmark of earlier works such asEndgameandWaiting for Godot.

Brater's is the first full-length study of Beckett's later dramatic works, and it is likely to remain the best....All told,Beyond Minimalismis thorough and lucid, an important contribution to Beckett scholarship. --Virginia Quarterly Review

Brater's command of the primary and secondary Beckett material is everywhere present in this gracefully written, solidly researched, perceptive, often penetrating work, which not only succeeds in illuminating 'the same but less' but moves the study of Beckett's plays beyond minimalism. The book contains excellent notes and a suggestive bibliography. --Choice

The book's success is profound. It pays stunning tribute to one considered by many to be the world's greatest living playwright by situating the dramatist's achievements in a fusion of fictional time with the temporality of the theatrical experience. --Theatre Journal

Will be indispensable to Beckett scholars....Not only does Professor Brater offer a detailed reading of each late lS,