{"product_id":"9780814212370","title":"The Work of Poverty: Samuel Beckett's Vagabonds and the Theater of Crisis","description":"How did Samuel Beckett's \u003ci\u003eWaiting for Godot\u003c\/i\u003e come to be performed in such places as San Quentin Prison, Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement, Sarajevo under military siege, New Orleans's Lower Ninth Ward after Hurricane Katrina, and Zuccotti Park during the Occupy Wall Street protests? \u003ci\u003eThe Work of Poverty: Samuel Beckett's Vagabonds and the Theater of Crisis\u003c\/i\u003e studies the appeal of \u003ci\u003eGodot\u003c\/i\u003e to audiences in settings of historical crisis and suffering. Lance Duerfahrd argues that these circumstances transform the performance and the reception of the play, thereby illuminating a cathartic and political dimension of Beckett's work that goes unseen in traditional performance contexts.\u003cp\u003eThe resonance of one of the most canonical plays of the twentieth century within landscapes of disaster fulfills the aesthetic of \"ultimate penury\" that Beckett hones in his work. Here the subtractive and reductive dynamic of the Nobel Prize-winning author's craft comes into clearer view, echoing with the despondent condition beyond the stage. In developing an aesthetic of penury, \u003ci\u003eThe Work of Poverty\u003c\/i\u003e brings together the dispossessed characters in \u003ci\u003eGodot;\u003c\/i\u003e the derelict narrators of Beckett's \u003ci\u003eMolloy, Malone Dies,\u003c\/i\u003e and the \u003ci\u003eUnnamable;\u003c\/i\u003e and the formal experimentation in poverty witnessed in his \u003ci\u003eEndgame\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eWorstward Ho.\u003c\/i\u003e Beckett forged increasingly destitute forms of theater and prose on the periphery of writing. Duerfahrd illustrates how this work speaks to our age by emphasizing characters on the periphery of society.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ohio State University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47016725774576,"sku":"9780814212370","price":67.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780814212370_p0.jpg?v=1763742612","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780814212370","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}