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Samuel Beckett’s Brush with Ballet

Samuel Beckett’s encounter with the aesthetics of ballet has not been fully acknowledged for its impact on his writing. Yet throughout his life Beckett investigated problems of kinaesthetics, and the mechanics of human movement was inspired by his reading of the seventeenth-century Cartesian philosopher Arnold Geulincx (1624–1669), reflected initially in Beckett’s novel Murphy (1938). At the same time, Beckett’s interest in the specificities of physical movement also derives from his spectatorship of, and comments on Petrouchka and other ballets in 1934–5, performed in London by the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo and Polish Ballet. Beckett’s subsequent meeting with a British ballet dancer, Deryk Mendel, working in Paris in the fifties, sustained this focus. Mendel was immersed in the burgeoning development of French mime and new movement forms, and Beckett created the mime Acte sans paroles (1957) for him. Mendel subsequently worked with Beckett as performer and director, including the first transmission of Eh Joe ( He Joe!, 1966) for German TV. Beckett’s encounter with Mendel consolidated his interest in the puppet figure of Petrouchka and initiated an enduring exploration of choreographic forms throughout his late work. His direction of his own plays in the 70s and 80s frequently focused on the rhythm and pacing of movement, spatial disposition of figures on stage, and latterly Beckett revitalized the enduring resonances of his encounters with ballet in a uniquely choreographic style for the performers of his late work.