Waiting for a good word

Irish poet and playwright Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot) was born on this day in 1906.

"It (Waiting for Godot) is pretentious gibberish, without any claim to importance whatsoever...It's just a waste of everybody's time and it makes me ashamed to think that such balls could be taken seriously for a moment." -- Noel Coward.

He didn't even read his obituary

English dramatist Richard Sheridan was born on this day in 1751. He wrote:

"The newspapers! Sir, they are the most villanous--licentious--abominable--infernal--not that I ever read them--no--I make it a rule never to look into a newspaper."

The unkindest cut

October 29, 1882 -- English playwright Jean Giradoux was born. He wrote:

"Little by little, the pimps have taken over the world. They don't do anything, they don't make anything -- they just stand there and take their cut."

The play is not the thing

October 10, 1930 -- PLaywright Harold Pinter born.

"A good many inconveniences attend playgoing in any large cities, but the greatest of these is usually the play itself." -- Kenneth Tynan.



October 11, 1885 -- French essayist Francois Mauriac born. He wrote:

"What I fear is not being forgotten after my death, but, rather, not being enough forgotten."

The truth about mendacity

Tennessee Williams' play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, opened on Broadway on this day in 1955.

Here is the character Big Daddy, played by Burl Ives, talking to his son, Brick:

"Mendacity. What do you know about mendacity? I could write a book on it...Mendacity. Look at all the lies that I got to put up with. Pretenses. Hypocrisy. Pretendin' like I care for Big Mama, I haven't been able to stand that woman in forty years. Church! It bores me. But I go. And all those swindlin' lodges and social clubs and money-grabbin' auxiliaries. It's-it's got me on the number one sucker list.

"Boy, I've lived with mendacity. Now why can't you live with it? You've got to live with it. There's nothin' to live with but mendacity. Is there?

"You and Skipper and millions like ya are livin' in a kid's world, playin' games, touchdowns, no worries, no responsibilities. Life ain't no damn football game. Life ain't just a bunch of high spots.

"You're a thirty-year old kid. Soon you'll be a fifty-year old kid, pretendin' you're hearin' cheers when there ain't any. Dreamin' and drinkin' your life away.

"Heroes in the real world live twenty-four hours a day, not just two hours in a game.

"Mendacity, you won't...you won't live with mendacity but you're an expert at it. The truth is pain and sweat and payin' bills and makin' love to a woman that you don't love anymore.

"Truth is dreams that don't come true and nobody prints your name in the paper 'til you die..."

Quaint, isn't he?

Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen ("A Doll's House") was born on this day in 1828.

"The public doesn't require any new ideas," Ibsen wrote. "The public is best served by the good, old-fashioned ideas it already has."

So he let his own water run

Today is the birthday of Anton Chekhov (born 1860), the Russian dramatist and short-story artist.

"And the whole world, the whole of life, seemed to Ryaobavich an aimless, unintelligible jest...The water was running, he knew not where or why...It had flowed into a great river, from the great river into the sea; then it had risen in vapor, turned into rain, and perhaps the very same water was running now before his eyes again...And why? For what purpose? -- The Kiss.

That's not fair, Moliere

Today is the birthday of the famous French dramatist Moliere (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin), born in 1622. He wrote:

“Man, I can assure you, is a nasty creature.”

Besides being one of the world’s great playwrights, Moliere was an actor and director of his plays. His total command of the art is probably unrivaled in history.

Moliere’s masterpiece is The Misanthrope, which was, in part, a send-up of his own unhappy marriage.

Moliere died in Paris in 1673, shortly after playing the lead in his The Imaginary Invalid. The clergy, whom he had offended throughout his career, refused him burial on holy ground. The funeral took place at night to avoid scandal; nonetheless, thousands attended a torchlight procession worthy of one of Moliere’s productions.

Today’s Perverse Verse:

No one could be such a holy terror
As Moliere.
In plays like The Misanthrope
He skewered human love and hope.
While telling people they were vile,
He had them rolling in the aisle.