Samuel Beckett

The Royal Shakespeare Company isn't just performing the works of its namesake during its month at the Kennedy Center.Theatergoers can also see one play that preceded Shakespeare (the morality play "Everyman") and one that followed him (Samuel Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape").Even the other two Shakespeare plays that are part of the RSC residency are among the master's later, and lesser-known, works - "Cymbeline" and "Henry VIII." Here's the schedule: "Henry VIII," through June 21; "Krapp's Last Tape," June 17 and June 19; "Everyman," June 23-28; and "Cymbeline," June 24-July 5. Tickets range from $15 for "Krapp's Last Tape" to $65 for box seats to "Cymbeline."

When most people think of the Royal Shakespeare Company they envision large-scale productions of Shakespearean plays. But as part of its residency at Washington's Kennedy Center, on June 17 and 19 the RSC is presenting Edward Petherbridge in Samuel Beckett's one-man tour-de-force, "Krapp's Last Tape."Best known for his portrayal of the title role in the British TV series, "Lord Peter Whimsey," Petherbridge co-directed Beckett's 1958 play with David Hunt. In the existential drama, he shares the stage with a tape recorder on which Krapp recorded his thoughts three decades ago.Show times for "Krapp's Last Tape," in the Terrace Theater at Kennedy Center, off Virginia and New Hampshire avenues N.W., Washington, are 6 p.m. June 17 and 19. Tickets are $15. Call 800-444-1324.

What is the artist's place in politics and society? Can art effect change? These are among the themes explored by the Potomac Theatre Project in two productions being presented in repertory at Olney Theatre Center -- "Stanley" and "Havel: The Passion of Thought."The plays, which run through Aug. 29, inaugurate Olney's new Mulitz-Gudelsky Family Theatre Lab.Based on the life of the late British artist Stanley Spencer, Pam Gems' "Stanley" had a brief Broadway run in 1997. Alan Wade portrays Spencer at Olney, under Cheryl Faraone's direction.

LIGHTS dimmed on Broadway Tuesday night. One of the brightest stars to grace the stage, Sir John Gielgud, died Sunday at age 96. An actor to the end, he appeared in a film this spring - not a Shakespearean classic (his specialty), but in a play by existentialist Samuel Beckett. For eight decades, he never lost the acting bug. From early on, critics applauded. Many considered him the pre-eminent Shakespearean actor - even better than his colleague Lord Laurence Olivier. As one early critic put it, "No one has ever spoken Shakespeare with such intelligence and understanding."

Albee's `Sylvia' at Mobtown The lowdown -- The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia?, Edward Albee's 2002 Tony Award-winning, challenging and disturbing domestic drama, opens tomorrow at Mobtown Players. The Baltimore premiere production is directed by Alex Willis and stars Michael Sullivan as an award-winning architect who develops a highly unconventional passion, Vicki Margolis as his wife, Michael Coene as their son and Mark Squirek as the architect's close friend. If you go -- Showtimes at Mobtown, 3600 Clipper Mill Road, are 8 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Oct. 5, and 4 p.m. Oct. 15, through Oct. 21. Tickets are $12. Call 410-467-3057 or go to mobtownplayers.

* Jean-Louis Barrault, the actor-director whose versatility and dramatic gifts delighted international audiences for more than a half-century, died Saturday of undisclosed causes at his home in western Paris. He was 83. A veteran of both classic and contemporary drama, Mr. Barrault was equally at ease with Shakespeare's "Hamlet," Ionesco's "Rhinoceros" or a bold stage adaptation of Rabelais' Renaissance masterpiece "Gargantua and Pantagruel." Mr. Barrault also starred in numerous films, including "The Children of Paradise" in 1944, "The Longest Day" in 1961 and "La Nuit de Varennes" in 1981.

Joseph Cates,74, a television and Broadway producer and the man who cast Art Carney in "The Honeymooners," died Saturday in New York of complications from leukemia.Mr. Cates, the father of actress Phoebe Cates, was a creator of one of television's first big game shows, "The $64,000 Question."He helped make television specials regular network features -- writing, producing and directing more than 1,000 of them.Richard Denning,85, a character actor in film and television perhaps best known for playing the governor in the television series "Hawaii Five-0," died Sunday in Escondido, Calif.

Samuel Beckett frequently observed that the moment we are born we start to die. Human existence, in Beckett's view, amounts to finding ways to pass the time while proceeding from the cradle to the grave.It's not exactly a cheerful philosophy, but it's not totally despairing, either. The characters in his novels and plays voice their complaints with such vigor that we know they are very much alive in a world they cannot control or even understand. When their bodies wither away and they are reduced, in theatrical terms, to spotlighted talking lips, their voices keep going.

In awarding the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature to Seamus Heaney, the Swedish Academy acknowledged the importance of Ireland to English letters, but struck a blow for poetry.It is a small island of some 5 million souls, but this is Ireland's third Nobel Prize for Literature after the poet-playwright William Butler Yeats (1923) and the playwright Samuel Beckett (1969), the fourth if the playwright-essayist George Bernard Shaw (1925) is credited to the country of his birth. Ireland's contribution of talent that glorified the English more than the Irish language for centuries is immense.

Tiny and almost gingerbread-like on the outside, boundless on the inside, the titular toy store of Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium is indeed a magical place. A sort of organic, anthropomorphized FAO Schwarz, the emporium is redolent of simpler times with its emphasis on low-fi, nostalgia-inducing toys such as Slinky toys and Legos, along with plenty of other enchantments. A whir of activity and color, it beckons to young and old to surrender to their most innocent beliefs. The movie marks the feature directing debut of screenwriter Zach Helm (Stranger Than Fiction)