Interview with a Dead Playwright: Samuel Beckett

That’s right, another segment of Interviews with a Dead Playwright because the live ones can file restraining orders !  I know what you’re thinking: “He’s finally snapped” “His first interview was with the Bard himself, William Shakespeare (CLICK HERE TO READ) how can he possibly top that?”

Well, that’s a lot of pressure, I can’t, that’s not fair, there are a TON of brilliant dead playwrights out there who I can hallucinate talking to !

So today I sat down with one of the broodiest men who have ever taken to the bottle pen, Mister Samuel Beckett!

AG: Hi Sam

Sam: Don’t call me Sam

AG: Why, because it rhymes with ham?

AG: If you looked like that, this interview would be OVER.  Because I’d eat you.

Ham: All right I’m going

AG: No, no, come back! We have a picture of you, too.

AG: Seriously?

Sam: I would love that picture of me, if I believed in love at all.  A wise man named Me once said “Do we mean love, when we say love?”

 

AG: …you’re a really happy guy

 

Beckmeister: Nothing is funnier than unhappiness

 

AG: You are just quoting yourself, aren’t you

 

Beck: Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.

 

AG: Well with an attitude like that, this interview is going to be madd difficult annoying short

Samby: If we prick them, do they not bleed?

AG: That wasn’t you, don’t even front like that, Samuel Beckett!

Samuel:  All right, that wasn’t me.

AG: Now, Sam

Sam: ::grumblegrumble::

AG: -Uel, you’ve encountered your fair amount of regection in your life, haven’t you?

SamB: I suffered for my art

AG: Yeah, can you elaborate for all those readers who weren’t forced against their will to take theatre history and read Waiting for Godot 20 times?

sAm: Shouldn’t that sentence be a strike through?

AG: Nah.

saM: I wrote most of my plays in France during WWII, in which I pissed everybody off by talking against the Germans.  I was in hiding, in exile, I was persecuted-

AG: Were you waiting for Godot?

SamuelMcCrankyPants: I WAS IN EXILE!

AG: So basically, you’ve had your fair share of rejection

Sam: Yes

AG: So do you have any words of advice for writers who have been regected?

Sam: Yes. Life sucks, buy a helmet

AG: Anything not as…I don’t know…Bumper Sticker-y?

SAm: FINE.  Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

AG: Mhmm.  Great.  You’re hilarious

The Most Depressing Man Ever:  Thanks

AG: LIGHTNING ROUND! What’s your favorite color?

Sam: Black

AG: PREDICTABLE! Do people call you Becks? You know, after the beer?

Becks: No

AG: Are you sure?

AG: Were you named after Samuel Adams or Sam the Eagel?

Sam the Adams Eagle: What?

AG: Yeah, that’s pretty obvious

Sam: I would be offended if I weren’t a figment of your imagination

AG: You know what, Samuel Beckett, I can put on a black turtleneck and brood, too!

AG: Sam, thanks so much for being such a good sport. BTW your plays are full of humor. Sometimes.  People usually don’t get the joke

Sam: Don’t be absurd

AG: HA good one!  Anyway, thanks for spending some hours with me.  This has been the opposite of informative.