Dirigiendo Footfalls: los elementos poéticos en las puestas en escena de Samuel Beckett

Abstract

This paper aims to present a reflection on the poetic elements present in Samuel Beckett's stagings of Footfalls. To do so, we will have as object the original dramaturgical text of this dramatic miniature according to Faber and Faber's edition of Beckett’s complete dramatic works and the theatrical notebooks containing manuscripts related to the creative process of the Irish playwright-director for his stagings of Footfalls at the Royal Court Theatre and at the Schiller-Theater Werkstatt, as well as the dramaturgical text revised according to the modifications proposed by Beckett in his manuscripts edited by Stanley Gontarski. As a guiding concept for this reflection, we will use what Gontarski (1998) calls "performance as text" in relation to the stagings directed by Samuel Beckett of some of his plays. The performative aspects elaborated by Beckett in both stagings will be examined in a comparative key in relation to the original dramaturgy of the play, as well as to the revised text, in order to point out the poetic elements present in Footfalls developed or enhanced by Beckett in each staging.