Samuel Beckett
Guinness Record Holder For Longest Theater Career Dies at 90
Actress Hanna Maron, who has died at age 90, began acting in 1927 and holds a Guinness record for endurance. Benjamin Ivry looks back on her remarkable career.
The 'Godot' We've All Been Waiting For
There’s a lot that’s perfect about doing Samuel Beckett’s classic play ‘Waiting for Godot’ in Yiddish. We just needed this new production to realize it.
'Waiting for Godot' Reimagined as Yiddish Kvechathon
“I was told not to worry” Shane Baker, translator from English into Yiddish of Nobelist Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” confided post opening night of the New Jewish Rep and Castillo Theatre’s world premiere of “Vartn Af Godot.”
The Yiddish Spirit of Samuel Beckett
The upcoming Yiddish production of ‘Waiting for Godot’ seems like a crazy idea, but the language casts a new light on Samuel Beckett’s existential masterpiece.
Q&A: Actor Alan Mandell on Samuel Beckett
Actor Alan Mandell has portrayed Shakespeare’s Shylock, Prospero and Lear, and performed everywhere from Dublin’s Abbey Theatre to Broadway to the silver screen. One of his most notable recent roles was Rabbi Marshak in the Coen brothers’ “A Serious Man.” Mandell is currently playing Estragon in “Waiting for Godot” at LA’s Mark Taper Forum. He talked to The Arty Semite about Judaism, existentialism, and working with Samuel Beckett.
Samuel Beckett's Letters Reveal Roots of Resistance
Samuel Beckett is known for his inert characters, but research reveals the intensity of his anti-Nazi activism. A new book shows how he stood up for German Jews.
Avigdor Arikha: An Artist 'Fervent in Adhesion' to His Subjects
In April, 2010, when the Israeli artist Avigdor Arikha (born Dlugacz in Romania) died at age 81, he was praised for his sensitive figurative art, as well as his heroic life story. In 1941, after Arikha’s family was deported to Romanian-run concentration camps, his drawings of deportation scenes, shown to International Red Cross representatives, won freedom for himself and his sister. By 1944 they had reached Palestine, where he lived on Kibbutz Ma’ale HaHamisha in the Judean Hills, before relocating definitively in 1954 to Paris.
Mon Semblable, Mon Père: Likenesses Found on the Lindon Tree
The French Jewish publisher Jérôme Lindon, who died in 2001 at age 75, introduced such authors as his friend Samuel Beckett and the 1950s Nouveau Roman (new novel) school, including Nathalie Sarraute and Claude Simon through his Les Éditions de Minuit.
30 Days, 30 Texts: 'Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number'
In celebration of Jewish Book Month, The Arty Semite is partnering with the Jewish Education Service of North America (JESNA) and the Jewish Book Council to present “30 Days, 30 Texts,” a series of reflections by community leaders on the books that influenced their Jewish journeys. Today, Rachel Brodie writes about “Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number” by Jacobo Timerman.
French Actor Sami Frey: or 'Beckett Judaizing Beckett'
The other evening, a solo performance of Samuel Beckett’s “First Love” (Premier Amour) at New York’s French Institute Alliance Française had an unexpected Jewish aura to it.