BECKETT SAMUEL: (1906-1989) Irish novelist and playwright, Nobel Prize winner for Literature ...

BECKETT SAMUEL: (1906-1989) Irish novelist and playwright, Nobel Prize winner for Literature, 1969. A good T.L.S., Sam, one page, 4to, Paris, 13th December 1956, to Deryk [Mendel]. Beckett informs his collaborator of a convocation that had taken place the previous evening at which authorisation was granted for the intercalation of a play (´in other words to postpone our opening to February 20th´), adding that he is relieved at the decision, and remarking ´The work on Endgame is very behind hand and I was increasingly paralysed at the thought of our having to set up the mime in three weeks, the more so as I have been unable to get hold of Noel in spite of repeated pneus and foresaw there would be no objects ready for you on your return. As the play to intervene has little if any set we shall have free use of the stage from January 10th onward. I have written to John [Beckett, the playwright´s cousin] at present in Ireland and girding up his loins to arrive December 21st, to ask him to arrive instead about January 15th. This new setup is a practcal (sic) cert, but will not be quite official until this evening. If I do not write again you may take it that these presents call for no correction´ before concluding by adding ´I have had to make a small alteration in mime scenario, in function of cube dynamics, but nothing to signify´. A letter of good content relating to Beckett´s absurdist, tragicomic one-act play Endgame. Some overall creasing, G

Deryk Mendel (1920-2013) British ballet dancer, choreographer, actor and director, a friend of Beckett. The playwright wrote the short play Act Without Words I in 1956 for Mendel and the dancer first performed the mime at the Royal Court Theatre in London on 3^rd April 1957.

Endgame, one of Beckett´s most celebrated plays, also received its premiere at the Royal Court Theatre on 3rd April 1957, and was performed in French under the direction of Roger Blinn, who also played Hamm.