Bad Godots: 'Vladimir Emerges from the Barrel' and Other Interventions

This Element focuses on the machinery of commercial theatre, on extra-authorial interventions into the creative process and on the people and institutional forces that foster them. Such a process challenges the autonomy of the artwork and authorial integrity. The primary focus of this Element is then on the hybrid genre of theatre where collective esthetics tends to override and so to supersede individual creation. The essay pays special attention to Samuel Beckett's first professionally produced play, Waiting for Godot, primarily its English language premieres in the US, UK, and the Republic of Ireland. Its implications, however, reach far beyond the genetic and production histories of a single theatrical work to deal with the nature of authorship in a monetized culture, the process of realizing dramatic texts in such a culture, and Samuel Beckett's engagement with such machinery of art.

這個部分專注於商業劇場的機械製作，以及對創作過程的非作者介入和促成這些介入的人和機構力量。這樣的過程挑戰了藝術作品的自主性和作者的完整性。這個部分的主要焦點是劇場這個混合體裁，其中集體美學往往優先於個人創作，並超越它。這篇文章特別關注塞繆爾·貝克特的第一部專業製作的劇作《等待戈多》（Waiting for Godot），主要是該劇在美國、英國和愛爾蘭共和國的英語首演。然而，它的意義遠不止於一個單一劇作的基因和製作歷史，而是涉及到在商品化文化中的作者身份的本質，以及在這樣的文化中實現戲劇文本的過程，以及塞繆爾·貝克特對藝術機械的參與。