RONAN FARREN,
Madam, - As an admirer of the journalistic and critical faculties of Fintan O'Toole I was stunned by his review of the Walter Asmus production of Waiting For Godot at the Gate Theatre (The Irish Times, January 9th).
Having praised the production, and described it as "definitive" (a term critics should beware, given the vagaries of "posterity"), he goes on to say there is an "incredibly obvious limitation in the play's claim to be a statement of the universal human condition" as its world is "overwhelmingly a man's world". All the characters are male, he writes, seemingly finding this disturbing; one wonders if he has the same problem with Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba, where all the characters are female.
He goes on: "The sense that humanity has only one gender \ is so strong that when you hear Pozzo's famous speech that begins 'They give birth astride a grave', you actually have to remind yourself who the 'they' are." Frankly, that suggests Mr O'Toole has lost contact with his inner adult.
But worse than this stereotypical political correctness is the suggestion that the tramps should be played by women, an approach, he admits, that Beckett himself "despised". What he is, apparently, saying is that now that Sam Beckett is safely dead, his great work may be tampered with and his wishes ignored: "His grip must be loosened."
What next? Hamleta, the lascivious lesbian, having her wicked way with a gymslipped Ophelia? - Yours, etc.,
RONAN FARREN,
Killiney,
Co Dublin.