Evaluating Samuel Beckett's visual stage language: viewing the aesthetic of failure through the lens of visual art

This thesis proposes that Beckett's engagement with art enabled him to develop a visual stage language through images which fed into his staging and through an understanding of the principles and elements of art. Therefore using the lens of visual art enables us to focus on the staging of Beckett's plays as evidence of him experimenting with new visual forms for failure. An extensive use of comparisons with modern art and the Old Masters builds on current scholarship, introducing fresh insights. I propose the concept of subversion as an element of Beckett's minimalism as a result of investigating the differences between Old Master paintings and his visual stage language. This systematic and wide-ranging investigation introduces many examples of how Beckett used the components of the mise-en-scène, such as lighting, costume, make-up, movement and gesture to create a visual aesthetic of failure. Use is made of a broad range of material including Beckett's production notebooks and records from actors, directors and designers. Beckett's writings on art emphasised the failure of representation and the need to show failure in the work itself. The visual elements I include under the aesthetic of failure are: abstraction, failed figure, figure in the stage construct, fragmentation, grotesque, liminality, minimalism and repetition. Merleau-Ponty's grounding of perception in the body's experience of its world and his linking this to visual art is used to throw light on aspects of Beckett's problematization of embodiment. This thesis demonstrates that Beckett's theatrical experimentation created a visual body of work: it aims to recalibrate the relative importance of the visual versus the spoken text, and therefore promote further scholarly debate.