While waiting for Godotflagship of the theater of the absurd, or historical piece ? Valentin and Pierre Temkine upset the interpretation of this classic which they replace in the context of his conception. A test that makes a big noise across the Rhine … Although written in French, by French people, on a French play.
A book on the famous play by Samuel Beckett, While waiting for Godotmakes a big noise on the other side of the Rhine, and beyond: it is until the Danish press which does not echo it. Nothing is sweating in France, while the book is translated from French – but has not found publisher to date in France. For what ? Because the authors do not come from the academic tradition ? Because the sustained thesis is unbearable ? According to Pierre and Valentin Temkine, indeed, While waiting for Godot is not the piece we said. The famous collection of Life writers once summarized the piece in these terms: “ Vladimir and tarragon, puppets suffering in the limbo of a no man’s land Where everything is repeated-words exchanged to last, gestures of tenderness and repulsion, clowneries eluding suffering, visits that humanity makes them (…)-persist in waiting for the improbable help of a outside or a beyond which leaves them to themselves, here and now taken in their questions »(Ludovic January, Beckett by himselfSeuil, 1969). Same story in a recent theater program: “ In a countryside, on a slow evening, two tramps are waiting for a certain Godot (…) that Vladimir and tarragon are rehashing, this tandem of Gugusses lost ? »(Compagnie Kick Théâtre, the theatrical center of Guyancourt, 2007, quoted in the book by François Rastier). From the time of creation, a critic had given the la: “ Godot, in an indefinite past, during somewhat uncertain circumstances, gave them a rather imprecise meeting in a poorly defined place at an indefinite hour ». Comment by Valentin Temkine: “ We cannot be mistaken more systematically ! »»
Repetition, no man’s landclowneries, all these categories constituting what is agreed to name “ Theater of the absurd Temkine sends them vigorously. On the contrary, the work has a place, a time, and the characters a very precise identity. The action is located near Roussillon, in the south of France (where Beckett actually stayed during the war), at the time of the invasion of the free zone, and the two characters of Vladimir and Tarragon are Jews who await the passer who will save them: a certain Godot. In 1942, there was no reason for them to leave Roussillon ; In 1944, they would already be deported. The scene therefore takes place precisely in the spring of 1943.
It is indeed a thesis, since Temkine grandfather and grandson (Valentin, the historian, and Pierre, the philosopher) administer demonstrations and schools. The decisive page is, in the current edition at Minuit, p. 13-14. It is alluded to “ The Roquette », Parisian district where the Talmudic schools were at the beginning of the century and until the 1930s ; To the images of the Holy Land, the Dead Sea, finally to the crime of being born, in circumcision. To which is added a number of converging indices, one of the most striking-and moreover already known to specialists, but, it seems, without being fired by it-being that the tarragon character was initially called Lévy, as evidenced by the manuscript we could see a few years ago during the exhibition Beckett in Beaubourg.
However, it will be objected, so precisely the author biffed this name to replace it with a more fanciful nickname, is it not that he deliberately renounced this historic anchoring ? If the reference to the years of persecution can, if necessary, account for the genesis of the work, must grew the interpretation of the completed work ? Pierre Temkine’s response is that Beckett has not erased all traces, and has left a number of lighting indications ; enough, in the end, to makeWhile waiting for Godot A historic piece – except that there is, according to the learned expression of François Rastier, “ Reversion of allegoris ». Let us understand that, in a classic historical room, the allusions are clear and the historical references are used to nourish an allegorical remarks, to deal with a contemporary problem ; While Beckett forges, conversely, a metaphysical and abstract fable from, and to speak of a very singular historical situation. He thus invents, say the authors, a way of being silent on the subject. No doubt Beckett himself went later, after Godotin the sense of an increasingly large abstraction, because his first works were on the contrary very anchored in an environment and a decor, swarming with historical details. But Godot is located at the hinge of this evolution, and still remains very inscribed in history.
Beckett therefore had to seek and find a certain distance so that the contemporary readers or spectators of events do not necessarily recognize them consciously, but, in a way, live them from the inside. He thus creates, writes Pierre Temkine in a very beautiful text entitled “ What does nothing say about it », A new literary object that can only be understood from the Auschwitz event. Beckett erasing the name of Lévy is forbidden, says Temkine, of “ To see the Jew as a Jew. Because he is neither the creeping threat fantasized by some nor the figure of the victim erected by others. Beckett goes directly to flesh and bone: these people are men. They will inspire compassion, disgust or boredom, but not because of their origin. An author who deals with such a subject can no longer designate his characters or name them. Designating, naming is now denouncing – destroying. The author then needed another audience: an audience who cannot imagine that he understands because he recognizes, identifies. The subject must be left in a chiaroscuro, so as not to invite the public, in turn, to designate. It is a question of respecting the characters, of not file or label them, says Pierre Temkine, quoting Lévinas: “ The best way to meet others is not to even notice the color of your eyes »(Emmanuel Lévinas, Ethics and infinitePocket book, p. 79).
But if it is so, it will be objected, why this revelation ? Is it not betraying the author’s intention to bring his play back to his tacit source ? Pierre Temkine’s response is that today this piece has become an almost rehabilitated classic, and that its representation in Clownesque form has had its time. It is necessary, he thinks, reconnect with the historical background in order to revive the potential of the staging and the game of the actors. Because there is a great distance between the road to an imaginary country and that where the militia or the resistance can arise at any time. Abstract anxiety becomes concrete fear, the stake becomes vital.
And above all, the situation presented in the play is no longer condemned to eternal repetition, as the absurd reading that has been plated on the play. No doubt Godot does not show himself: but this is surprising in a context of war ? Perhaps it will appear tomorrow. As Beckett writes in a contemporary text of Godot,, The unspeakable : “ Nothing changes here since I am here, but I dare to conclude that nothing will ever change ». In fact, Temkine grandfather and grandson have indeed changed the interpretation received from one of the most famous pieces of the contemporary repertoire. It remains to be said.