DLR / SWR / WDR / ABC / 2006 – 52:02
Life and work. Can an author’s biography shed light upon his work? James Knowlson answered this question with an emphatic “no” for years. “Biographical knowledge won’t help us in understanding Waiting for Godot,” he maintained in lectures. Now, after the work on his monumental Beckett biography, the Professor and founder of the Beckett archive in Reading reaches completely different conclusions.
Beckett himself always saw a strict separation between his work and private life, which he guarded rigorously. He didn’t give interviews and even forbade the recording of his voice.
Life and work. This broadcast itself is also seeking out this contraposition, somewhere between radio play and feature. The literary world of the Irish author is confronted with his life. The memories of relatives, friends and former colleagues help us see a Beckett that has little to do with the image he maintained – the disheartened and demoralised author who primarily wrote about death, decay and age.
→ text of the radio play (PDF)
Producers: Jean-Claude Kuner und Andrea Marggraf
Actors: Fritz Lichtenhahn, Tonio Arango, Klaus Herm, Friedhelm Ptok
Piano: Thomas Bächli
Broadcast: ABC / May 2006
Awards: Grand Prix Marulic (Category Documentary) 2006