First Love

by Samuel Beckett

a recite for theatre

'I associate, rightly or wrongly, my marriage with the death of my father, in time. That other links exist ...'

Approaching the end of his life a man reminisces — how on a bench by the canal she sang tunelessly and he shuffled his atrcious feet, and gradually came to contend with a feeling which took on the dread name of love. Written during the period of intense creativity which produced Waiting for Godot and The Trilogy of Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable, Beckett withheld First Love for many years on account of it being too personal, and while the woman depicted was still alive. Since publication it has become one of his best loved stories.

Performance

3 – 15 June 2002
Aktéon Théâtre, Paris

First Love

Samuel Beckett

Cast: Kevin Malone
directed by Peter Reid