Samuel Beckett and Performance Art

‘Samuel Beckett and Performance Art’ explores the interconnections between Performance Art and Samuel Beckett's prose and drama. It analyses the relations between Beckett's work and that of Franz Erhard Walther, Bruce Nauman, Dennis Oppenheim, Vito Acconci, Chris Burden, Marina Abramovic, Alastair MacLennan and Amanda Coogan. It concludes that examining Beckett in the context of Performance Art enables us to reconsider elements vital to his theatre: the experience of the body in space in terms of duration and endurance; the role of repetition, reiteration and rehearsal; and the visceral interplay between language and the body.