Spring in Dublin is bursting with events commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of Ireland’s foremost writers and master of many genres, Nobel Laureate Samuel Beckett. Roberta Cauchi discovers a welcoming vibrant city spurting cultural ferment, all geared up to host the big event.
‘A Hundred Years and Still Waiting’ greeted one huge advert at the Dublin airport as Samuel Beckett’s piercing, hawking look entranced passengers who stopped flitting by. Indeed, Samuel Beckett’s masterpiece Waiting for Godot has filtered through to pop culture, all the arts and even taxi ads.
It was enough to make me stall and it got the attention of my struggling self as I juggled luggage, beauty case, laptop, handbag and nearly tipped over. And yes, this was just a prelude because, as I was later to discover Beckett’s stern fix is watching over the city at the moment, fluttering from every Dublin lamp-post.
The Beckett Centenary Festival is a massive event and you can breathe Beckett at every nook and cranny: on the O’Connell bridge, along all the Liffey, on and off Trinity College campus, down Grafton street – Beckett’s ubiquitous presence has joined the forces of politicians, exhibition halls, theatres (foremost among which is the Gate Theatre), libraries and archives, film institutes, concert halls, national galleries, radio and television.
The Beckett Centenary Symposium running parallel to the Beckett Working Group of the International Federation of Theatre Research, both held at the Samuel Beckett Theatre at Trinity College, were occasions not to be missed not only for those who, like myself, are carrying out research about this genius of a playwright, but also for anyone interested in the theatrical genre.
Samuel Beckett is also somewhat linked to our Island because not only did the playwright visit us twice in 1971 and 1972 but it is known that his later dramaticule (a term he coined himself) Not I, where a mouth is suspended in mid air spurting out words from the encroaching darkness was, by Beckett’s own admission, inspired by our very own Caravaggio painting The Decollation of St. John The Baptist.
The two events brought eminent scholars and artists from around the world to discuss the legacy and works of one of Trinity’s most famous graduates. However, Becket’s relation to Trinity College was an ambivalent one. He graduated with a first in Modern Languages, French and Italian, in 1927 and was a lecturer in French the following year. He left for Paris where he spent most of his mature years but returned to accept an honorary doctorate in 1959.
The Symposium included lectures by eminent scholars Terry Eagleton, literary critic, John Rockwell, art and music critic for The New York Times, Paul Muldoon, Irish poet and Marina Warner, cultural commentator.
Having savoured all this and more, it was no surprise that I boarded the plane to Gatwick with a heavy heart but an alert mind bursting at the seams.
The events continue and some stretch until September. I would not bat an eyelid at the idea of popping back to the poetic magical city of James Joyce and now of his friend and major literary collaborator, Sam Beckett.