This book draws on the theatrical thinking of Samuel Beckett and the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze to propose a method for research undertaken at the borders of performance and philosophy. Exploring how Beckett fabricates encounters with the impossible and the unthinkable in performance, it asks how philosophy can approach what cannot be thought while honouring and preserving its alterity. Employing its method, it creates a series of encounters between aspects of Becketts theatrical practice and a range of concepts drawn from Deleuzes philosophy. Through the force of these encounters, a new range of concepts is invented. These provide novel ways of thinking affect and the body in performance; the possibility of theatrical automation; and the importance of failure and invention in our attempts to respond to performance encounters. Further, this book includes new approaches to Becketts later theatrical work and provides an overview of Deleuzes conception of philosophical practice as an ongoing struggle to think with immanence.
1. Introduction: Theatrical Encounters.
2. Neither with you nor without you: Performance and Philosophy in Becketts Non-relational Aesthetics.
3. A Thousand Failures and A Thousand Inventions: Towards a Method for Performance Philosophy.
4. Belacquobatics: Deleuze, Affect and Becketts Affective Athleticism.
5. Belacquobatic-secrets: Deleuze and the Purgatorial Rebellion of the Beckettian Body.
6. Pure and Theatrical Optical-Sound Situations: Automation and the Image in Becketts Play.
7. A Crystal-Theatre: Suffering for Love.
8. Conclusion.
Daniel Koczy is a performance theorist and philosopher. He teaches philosophy at Newcastle University, UK, and in performance at Nolă
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