Beckett Players; Open Theater (Beckett, Samuel)

Two Original Programs: "The Beckett Players present An Evening with Samuel Beckett" with: "Open Theater presents...Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett"

San Francisco, CA: The Beckett Players, 1977. Folded Single Sheets. Offered here are two pamphlets/programs given to attendees of stagings of works by Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), with one dedicated entirely to Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.” Initially composed in French, first published in September of 1952, & first performed the following month (on October 17th, to be specific), “the reviewers were kind, contrary to later legend” as one commentator put it. They were not without incident, however: and the initial stagings did feature what all great works of Modernist art are subjected to: spectators whistling and hooting derisively. This item, from the collection of the co-authorial founder of the Second San Francisco Renaissance, Thomas Rain Crowe (b. 1949), speaks to the SSFR’s enduring interest in their Modernist predecessors, and their then-ongoing desire to learn all they could from (& about) the great works that preceded them. These San Francisco stagings of work by Beckett are thus a testament to that tendency. For more information on the Thomas Rain Crowe archive (assembled & curated by Third Mind Books), see our book Starting From San Francisco: Thomas Rain Crowe in Conversation with Third Mind Books (item #3071) & the catalog for the Crowe archive (item #1010), which contains several excerpts and quotations from the book as well as a full listing of the archive’s contents, which are now being offered for sale individually on the Third Mind Books site. Folded single sheets: First (& only) Printing[s], in each case. Both pamphlets in strong near fine condition with only moderate edge-wear to mild-to-moderate scattered horizontal, as well as vertical creasing-indentations & age-toning throughout, otherwise clean. Near Fine. [Item #7212]

Price: $30.00