Theatre of Shadows: Beckett's Drama

Perhaps nothing is more fascinating to the student of literature than an insight into a writer's creative process, a study of how the published works, from All That Fall to Footfalls, came to be as they are. Theatre of Shadows both defines and takes as its subject the middle period of Samuel Beckett's dramatic writing. By making a close study of the structure, and of the largely unpublished manus-cript drafts, of the plays written from 1956 to 1976, this book offers considerable insight into Beckett's creative process. A combination of rigorous patterning and a movement away from concrete expression (what Beckett himself called a 'vaguening' of the text) is seen to be his customary working method during this period. Dr Pountney goes on to discuss how the plays work in the theatre, through a detailed analysis of Beckett's stagecraft. The book provides the student with as comprehensive an approach as possible to two decades of Beckett's drama. 'a marvellous contribution to Beckett criticism....  painstakingly scholarly, meticulous in its observations, and illuminating in its detail' Review of English Studies, 1990. 'If you want the best book on the background to Beckett's plays (without jargon) this is it. It is also the most useful for the actor.' Barry McGovern