Samuel Beckett

Director Xerxes Mehta has written that he considers Samuel Beckett's late plays "ghost-plays, hauntings." In keeping with this, there is a profound spookiness to the three short pieces he has mounted for the Maryland Stage Company, the professional company in residence at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. In Mehta's exacting production, the lighting, exquisitely designed by Terry Cobb, is as much a character as the actors. All three plays begin with the theater shrouded in darkness so deep it goes beyond black to bleak.

I know Miller's people," says Howard Witt. The actor is referring to Arthur Miller. His knowledge of the playwright's characters comes from appearing in repeated productions of Miller's plays, most notably in the 1999 Broadway revival of Death of a Salesman. Witt's portrayal of Charley, the title character's neighbor, earned him a Tony Award nomination; he will re-create that performance on London's West End this spring. Witt is discussing Miller now because, beginning tonight in Center Stage's production of The Price, he will portray Gregory Solomon, an 89-year-old Russian-Jewish immigrant antiques dealer who attempts to put a value on the estate left to two estranged brothers.

Direct from Berlin, where the troupe performed in the international Samuel Beckett festival and symposium earlier this month, the Maryland Stage Company will present three short Beckett plays - "Play," "That Time" and "Ohio Impromptu" - at its home base, the University of Maryland Baltimore County Theatre, for seven performances beginning tonight. Xerxes Mehta, the company's artistic director and president- elect of the Samuel Beckett Society, directs a cast of four - Sam McCready, Wendy Salkind, Bill Largess and Peggy Yates - in these works from Beckett's late period, the 1970s and 1980s.

Hugh Kenner, a former English professor at the Johns Hopkins University who was also a critic and celebrated scholar who wrote on James Joyce and Ezra Pound among other literary figures, died of a heart ailment Monday at his home in Athens, Ga. He was 80. Dr. Kenner taught at Hopkins from 1973 until 1991, when he joined the faculty of the University of Georgia. A specialist in 20th-century literature, Dr. Kenner made his reputation with critical studies of Joyce, Pound, T.S. Eliot and W.B. Yeats.

Olney does Arthur MillerArthur Miller's 1994 play, "Broken Glass," opens the Olney Theatre Center season tomorrow. Set in Brooklyn in 1938, the play focuses on a Jewish housewife afflicted with "hysterical paralysis," possibly caused by news accounts of Nazi atrocities in Germany, or possibly by problems in her marriage. Brigid Cleary and Edward Gero play the husband and wife under the co-direction of Jim Petosa and Halo Wines.Show times at Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Route 108, Olney, are 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays and 7: 30 p.m. Sundays, with matinees at 2: 30 p.m. Sundays and selected Saturdays, and 2 p.m. selected Thursdays.

Samuel Beckett, 1906-1989;Born to a prosperous Protestant family in the Dublin suburb of Foxrock, Beckett attended Trinity College, Dublin, where he studied modern languages. He traveled widely in Europe in the 1930s before settling in Paris, where he became a close disciple of James Joyce.Beckett wrote many novels, including "Murphy," which Dylan Thomas called "Freudian blarney," and "Molloy," which explores a mysterious Jekyll and Hyde relationship between two men, Maron and Molloy.He considered himself to be primarily a novelist, but it was with his play "Waiting for Godot" in 1954 that Beckett gained celebrity status.

The plays of Samuel Beckett -- particularly his later works -- are terse to the point of being cryptic.Here's a synopsis of each of the three short works being presented by UMBC's Maryland Stage Company under the joint title "A Tribute to Samuel Beckett": In "Not I," a woman's disembodied mouth spews out a monologue to a darkly cloaked figure who never speaks; in "Ohio Impromptu," two men with identical long white hair sit at a table where one slowly reads...

Maryland Stage Company to present tribute to Samuel 0) BeckettIn memory of Samuel Beckett, who died last December, the Maryland Stage Company will present "A Tribute to Samuel Beckett," three of the influential Irish playwright's short plays, beginning Thursday at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. A symposium on Beckett will be held Saturday at 9:30 p.m.The plays, "Not I," "Ohio Impromptu" and "Rockaby," will be directed by Xerxes Mehta, artistic director of the Maryland Stage Company, the resident professional troupe at UMBC.

When the Action Theater's six-member ensemble took its "Beckettland" production to Scotland in August, they left Baltimore with high hopes. When they returned, they not only had exceeded all expectations but also had a signed contract with a Dutch agent who is organizing a European tour for the local troupe.The actors -- Tony Tsendeas, Donna Sherman, Thomas E. Cole, Robb Bauer, Cassandra Davis and Paul Christensen -- performed their anthology of short plays by Samuel Beckett as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

WESTMINSTER - "Simone de Beauvoir: A Biography," by Deirdre Bair, will be the focus of the fall semester's final Book Sandwiched In review from 12:10 to 1 p.m. in the McDaniel Lounge on Wednesday, Dec. 5.Dr. Martine Motard-Noar, WMC assistant professor of foreign languages, will examine this acclaimed biography of the French playwright, novelist and essayist.Motard-Noar earned her Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska in 1987, and most recently taught French at Drew University. She has taught French at Western Maryland since her arrival in the fall of 1988.

Youth: Scenes From Provincial Life II, by J.M. Coetzee. Viking. 169 pages. $22.95. It's not a good sign, when taking on a book that's all of 169 pages, to spend most of your time wondering if you'll make it to the finish line. That was my problem with Youth. What's worse, I'd had exactly the opposite problem with the only other Coetzee novel I've read -- Disgrace. For that book, I had to force myself to slow down over the final pages because I hated the thought that it was going to end. Disgrace is taut, penetrating, unsparing.

Director Xerxes Mehta has written that he considers Samuel Beckett's late plays "ghost-plays, hauntings." In keeping with this, there is a profound spookiness to the three short pieces he has mounted for the Maryland Stage Company, the professional company in residence at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. In Mehta's exacting production, the lighting, exquisitely designed by Terry Cobb, is as much a character as the actors. All three plays begin with the theater shrouded in darkness so deep it goes beyond black to bleak.

Direct from Berlin, where the troupe performed in the international Samuel Beckett festival and symposium earlier this month, the Maryland Stage Company will present three short Beckett plays - "Play," "That Time" and "Ohio Impromptu" - at its home base, the University of Maryland Baltimore County Theatre, for seven performances beginning tonight. Xerxes Mehta, the company's artistic director and president- elect of the Samuel Beckett Society, directs a cast of four - Sam McCready, Wendy Salkind, Bill Largess and Peggy Yates - in these works from Beckett's late period, the 1970s and 1980s.

William Randolph Mueller, Humanities Institute founder and former chairman of Goucher College's English department, died Wednesday of a stroke at Roland Park Place. He was 83. In 1972, after a lengthy stint teaching English literature to college undergraduates, he struck out on his own and founded the Humanities Institute, a continuing-education program initially tailored to women who had finished raising their families. His eight-week courses flourished for 15 years here and are offered as literary seminars in England, Scotland and Ireland.

Samuel Beckett, 1906-1989;Born to a prosperous Protestant family in the Dublin suburb of Foxrock, Beckett attended Trinity College, Dublin, where he studied modern languages. He traveled widely in Europe in the 1930s before settling in Paris, where he became a close disciple of James Joyce.Beckett wrote many novels, including "Murphy," which Dylan Thomas called "Freudian blarney," and "Molloy," which explores a mysterious Jekyll and Hyde relationship between two men, Maron and Molloy.He considered himself to be primarily a novelist, but it was with his play "Waiting for Godot" in 1954 that Beckett gained celebrity status.

When the Action Theater's six-member ensemble took its "Beckettland" production to Scotland in August, they left Baltimore with high hopes. When they returned, they not only had exceeded all expectations but also had a signed contract with a Dutch agent who is organizing a European tour for the local troupe.The actors -- Tony Tsendeas, Donna Sherman, Thomas E. Cole, Robb Bauer, Cassandra Davis and Paul Christensen -- performed their anthology of short plays by Samuel Beckett as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

...TC Two seasons ago, the Impossible Industrial Action theater company produced an anthology of short plays by Samuel Beckett in a carnival setting and under the omnibus title "BeckettLand." Now the company, renamed simply Action Theater, is preparing to take "BeckettLand" to Scotland's prestigious Edinburgh Festival, followed by an engagement in Tel Aviv at the invitation of Israel's Tmu-Na theater company.The "BeckettLand" selections are "What Where," "Act Without Words 2," "Theater 1," "Footfalls," "Catastrophe" and "Breath."

William Randolph Mueller, Humanities Institute founder and former chairman of Goucher College's English department, died Wednesday of a stroke at Roland Park Place. He was 83. In 1972, after a lengthy stint teaching English literature to college undergraduates, he struck out on his own and founded the Humanities Institute, a continuing-education program initially tailored to women who had finished raising their families. His eight-week courses flourished for 15 years here and are offered as literary seminars in England, Scotland and Ireland.

...TC Two seasons ago, the Impossible Industrial Action theater company produced an anthology of short plays by Samuel Beckett in a carnival setting and under the omnibus title "BeckettLand." Now the company, renamed simply Action Theater, is preparing to take "BeckettLand" to Scotland's prestigious Edinburgh Festival, followed by an engagement in Tel Aviv at the invitation of Israel's Tmu-Na theater company.The "BeckettLand" selections are "What Where," "Act Without Words 2," "Theater 1," "Footfalls," "Catastrophe" and "Breath."

For one glorious week this month, they were Becketteers.Well, not entirely glorious.When the Maryland Stage Company arrived in Strasbourg, France, as one of only two American theater troupes invited to perform at the prestigious International Samuel Beckett Symposium and Festival, the luggage containing their props -- including three crucial wigs -- did not arrive with them.Frantic, they persuaded their Washington wig maker to create duplicates and express-ship them, only to have Air France retrieve the lost luggage before the new wigs arrived.