[Nietzsche Circle][Hyperion]

Access to the Body

The Theatre of Revelation in Beckett, Foreman, and Barker

By George Hunka

Footnotes

(1) Originally written for the conference “Howard Barker’s Art of the Theatre,” University of Aberystwyth, Wales 10-12 July 2009.

(2) I cite Schopenhauer here with quite deliberate intent. The three dramatists under consideration in this paper are frequently discussed in connection with contemporary continental philosophies such as those of Adorno, Lacan, Bataille, and Badiou, but it seems to me that their work clearly emerges not from the Hegelian strain of post-Cartesian and especially post-Kantian thought, but from the alternative strain that leads from Schopenhauer to Nietzsche (despite Adorno’s dismissive comments on Schopenhauer). Most contemporary continental philosophy, such as Zizek’s, emerges from a closer emphasis on the Hegelian rather than the Schopenhauerian stream of influence. In the avoidance of a discussion of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics, these critics it seems to me offer an incomplete—and occasionally blinkered and narrow—consideration of the European aesthetic tradition that lies beneath these plays. (I also urge that, apart from Beckett, Foreman and Barker may or may not agree with this assessment of a Schopenhauerian dimension in their work; I’m unaware of any specific reference to this philosopher in their theoretical writings.) For more on Schopenhauer’s metaphysics and aesthetics, see Schopenhauer, Philosophy and the Arts, edited by Dale Jacquette (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), and for Beckett’s specific indebtedness to Schopenhauer, see Ulrich Pothast’s The Metaphysical Vision: Arthur Schopenhauer’s Philosophy of Art and Life and Samuel Beckett’s Own Way to Make Use of It (London: Peter Lang Publishing, 2008). A dreadful subtitle, and the book unfortunately lacks extended consideration of Becketts post-1962 drama.

(3) Richard Foreman, Plays and Manifestos (New York: NYU Press, 1976). See especially editor Kate Davy’s introduction.

(4) Interview with Howard Barker, Private Passions, BBC, 11 June 2006. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/privatepassions/pip/559ls/

(5) Samuel Beckett, Disjecta: Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragment, ed. by Ruby Cohn (New York: Grove Press, 1984): 171.

(6) Richard Foreman, “Interview with Ken Jordan” (1990): 6. Accessed 20 June 2009 at http://www.ontological.com/RF/rfinterviews/ForemanJordan1990.doc.

(7) Richard Foreman, Unbalancing Acts: Foundations for a Theater (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992): 4.

(8) Richard Foreman, Panic! (How to Be Happy!). In Bad Boy Nietzsche! And Other Plays (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2005).

(9) Richard Foreman, Plays and Manifestos (New York: New York University Press, 1976): 74.

(10) Foreman, ibid., 70.

(11) Howard Barker, Victory. In Plays One (London: Oberon Books, 2006).

(12) Howard Barker, The Castle. In Plays Two (London: Oberon Books, 2006): 67.

(13) David Ian Rabey, Howard Barker: Politics and Desire (New York: Macmillan, 1989): 167.

(14) Rabey, ibid., 166-167.

(15) Howard Barker, The Europeans. In Plays One (London: Oberon Books, 2006).

(16) Samuel Beckett, The Complete Dramatic Works (London: Faber & Faber, 1986): 458.