Presented to you through Paradigm Publishing Services

Edinburgh University Press

Visit our Partner Page See all our books
Home Edinburgh University Press Beckett’s Co-authors
book: Beckett’s Co-authors
Book
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Beckett’s Co-authors

Rewriting Waiting for Godot
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2025

About this book

Closely examines the original stagings of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and the point at which theatrical collaboration becomes co-authorship

  • Addresses the question of “Who wrote Godot?’ and concludes that the matter depends on which edition of the play one reads or what version of the text is being staged, and by whom
  • Details authorial relationship to the complicated machinery of commercial theatrical production
  • Re-evaluates common or received assumptions about that theatrical process
  • Includes previously unpublished letters and assesses unknown or reassesses underexplored archival material
Beckett’s Co-authors takes a fresh look at Samuel Beckett and the business of authorship, especially his involvement in the complicated machinery of commercial theatre. Focusing particularly on Beckett's first professionally produced play, Waiting for Godot, and its premieres in the US, UK and the Republic of Ireland, this book examines extra-authorial interventions into the creative process and how such interventions challenges the autonomy of the author and his artwork. Calling the result of these early collaborations ‘co-authorship’, S. E. Gontarski delves into the hybrid genre of theatre where collective aesthetics tends to override and thus supersede individual creation, using the methodology of archival archaeology to uncover previously unpublished letters and unknown archival documents relating to three national premieres. These case studies nevertheless have implications far beyond a single theatrical work, placing a spotlight on the nature of authorship and the process of realising dramatic texts in a monetised culture.

Topics

  • Publicly Available

    Frontmatter

    i
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Contents

    v
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    List of Figures

    vi
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Series Editor’s Preface

    xiii
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Acknowledgments

    xiv
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Prologue

    xvii
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Note on the Text

    xix
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    1 Overview: A Genealogy of Intervention

    1
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    2 The Broadway Adepts, or Wilderizing Beckett

    18
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    3 Godot’s Bad Blood: The Tumult in Miami

    112
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    4 Cutting up Godot

    124
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    5 Mimeography: Godot and the Uncertainties of Textual Transmission

    140
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    6 ‘Cerebral physiology’, Degeneration and the Irrelevance of Godot

    162
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    7 The Case for Multiple Authorship

    183
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Appendix A Waiting for Godot. Theatre Arts. XL.8 (August 1956): 36–61 (collation)

    196
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Appendix B Peter Snow’s Autograph Revisions Collated with Grove Press edition

    198
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Appendix C Donald Albery’s memo to the Lord Chamberlain, April 1954

    216
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Appendix D Known Copies of Mimeographed Versions Waiting for Godot

    222
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Relevant Archives

    225
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    References

    226
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Notes

    238
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Index

    266
    Download PDF

Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
May 22, 2025
eBook ISBN:
9781399529358
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
296
View content
https://doi.org/10.1515/9781399529358
eBook ISBN: 9781399529358
Keywords for this book
Theatrical adaptation; retranslation; localized translation; authorial integrity; commodification; art and commerce
Audience(s) for this book
For universities and colleges of further and higher education
Sign up now to receive a 20% welcome discount
Institutional Access
How does access work?
Winner of the OpenAthens UX Award 2026
Winner of the OpenAthens UX Award 2026
Have an idea on how to improve our website?
Please write us.
© 2026 De Gruyter Brill
Downloaded on 27.3.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781399529358/html
Scroll to top button