# - Beckett, Samuel.

advising magee on his performance in 'krapp's last tape', discussing other plays and actors, and offering help and encouragement, 37 pages, 4to and 8vo, 14 autograph envelopes, chiefly Paris and Ussy-sur-Marne (also Porto Santo and Nabeul), 24 March 1958 to 15 December 1987, some letters heavily creased with tears (no loss)



[together with:] ten autograph postcards by beckett to patrick magee's widow belle, sending his condolences after Magee's death ("...The BBC sent me the tape of Ill seen ill said. I listened to it with deep emotion...Pat is often in my sorrowful thoughts...") and observing later that "near the end of the road now I can agree with old Krapp that I wouldn't want it back. In spite of the good moments on the way"; 10 pages, 8vo, 8 autograph envelopies, chiefly Paris, 19 August 1982 to 15 December 1987



[together with:] 12 letters by Barbara Bray to Magee, chiefly discussing her work and Magee's broadcasts of extracts from Beckett's works, 15 pages, 4to and 8vo, 18 January 1974 to 9 June 1976 where dated; copies of two letters by Beckett to Donald McWhinnie written shortly after hearing Magee's voice for the first time ("...Magee's performance is unforgettable..."), 28 January 1958; and related material

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After hearing Magee's gravelly voice broadcasting extracts from Molloy on the BBC, Beckett was prompted to write what was to become one of his most popular plays, Krapp's Last Tape. The first letter in this series dates from when Beckett sent Magee the finished script ("your monologue") and refers to how much he was "moved" by Magee's readings on the radio. From the start he reposes great faith in the actor ("...Krapp's face as he listens is of course three quarters of that battle. I made no attempt to indicate its changes and unchangingness, feeling that these could safely be left to you...").

A more detailed letter follows on 11 April 1958, in which Beckett explains with typical precision the minutiae of his script and stage directions:

"...you'll have to draw attention to the first banana skin somehow, so as to be able to throw the second at the audience. All this business could be cut out of course, but I should prefer not. You have a precarious walk in any case and you needn't slip on the skin...You are quite right about the voice and I should have indicated its tone more precisely. The self-importance is mainly in relation to the 'opus' and can therefore disappear in the canal and lake passages and reappear in the pier passage...a word to be brought out very strong is 'burning'...in order that 'fire' at the end may carry all its ambiguity..."

Such was the success of Magee's portrayal of Krapp in the 1958 première that Beckett could not envisage another actor taking his place. In the letters he wrote to Magee in the autumn of 1963, during discussions about a BBC production in which Magee was not involved, Beckett's disappointment is clear:

"...I have seen the directrix Prudence Fitzgerald and insisted that you be given the part... I told [her]...that the play was written for you and that your performance could not be bettered...I saw Cyril [Cusack]'s performance here. It was nothing. Pinter is all for you and told PF so...It is not clear to me...why I was consulted at all and why the lady bothered her arse to come over. The result will be disastrous and I have only myself to blame..."

Magee's performances of Beckett's works continued for over a decade, in the form of radio broadcasts and further stage appearances. Beckett was keen for him to play Lucky in a BBC production of Waiting for Godot in 1960 ("...I think you would do it excellently well...") and to appear as Hamm alongside Jack MacGowran as Clov in a 1964 production of Endgame directed by Michael Blake ("...I hope devoutly it comes off..."). In response to requests by Magee, Beckett sent him "gasps from my pen" (..."What will meet your disgusted eye is a series of short paragraphs...separated by pauses during which panting cordially invited and without as much punctuation as a comma to break the monotony or promote the understanding...I have never committed anything -- I trust -- so exhausted and unpalatable and shall not be in the least offended if you refuse to have anything to do with it...") but later on, in 1975, he would find it difficult to revisit his earlier work ("...I started looking at the 'Trilogy' for possible extracts -- & had to stop. Dear Pat, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I can't help with this selection. I can't reread myself. Literally cannot...").

Throughout the series Beckett describes further bouts of "theatre misery" such as the opening of Happy Days in 1963 ("...went well, Madeleine [Renaud] had her triumph and the press was good with the gratifying exception of Monsieur Gaulthier...") and Waiting for Godot in Berlin in 1965 ("...It was well received and will at least have been a rebuttal of the traditional German Godot all low high jinks and hippopotamean metaphysics. Working there I got the idea of writing a half-hour burlesque of the work...").

Years of working together and hours of post-rehearsal drinking in Paris and London forged a close friendship between Beckett and Magee. It is clear from his letters that Beckett looked forward keenly to their meetings ("...Wish you were beside me here in this old losing game...Your coming round this morning moved me mightily...May we get together soon..."). As their friendship developed, Beckett began to adopt a tone of despondency so characteristic of his letters to close friends ("...I jog on the same old way, i.e. intermittent banging of head against literary (?) walls...I stumble along with diminishing impetuosity and I hope shall soon just lie down and refuse to move...Just finished translating Watt into French, awful job. Nothing new in sight but there bloody well soon will have to be..."). Also notable in the letters is his sincere affection and concern for Magee, who in the late 1970s appears to have encountered some financial and personal hardship. Beckett makes frequent and tactful offers of help ("...you sounded frighteningly disturbed -- down on the phone. If I can ever help with the filthy needful do me the friendship of letting me know...") and reassures his "old friend" of his support

"...do try & put the whole thing from your mind. It overcame you, some very acute & complex it, as it does us all, some time or another, one way or another, violently or gradually. In me there is not the faintest trace of resentment. My feeling for you is what it has not ceased to be, all these years, one of true affection & esteem..."

these letters appear never to have been shown to beckett's biographers and provide important details on the first performance of 'krapp's last tape'.