In the Name of the Author: Samuel Beckett, Sarah Kane, and Their Disputed Italian Productions

This chapter looks at some controversial Italian productions of Beckett’s and Kane’s work with a view to exploring the potential for copyright protection to operate as a covert form of censorship, a means not only to regulate access to theatre scripts but to actively control their interpretation. It considers, in particular, two paradigmatic episodes: the interrupted run, in 2003, of Pippo Delbono’s free take on Sarah Kane’s '4.48 Psychosis', and the prohibition issued by the Beckett Estate on Roberto Bacci’s casting of twin sisters for his 2006 production of 'Waiting for Godot' in Pontedera. These examples draw attention to the use of licensing as a means of extending the writer’s control from the domain of text into that of performance; as a way, that is, of reasserting the agency of writing in the supposedly independent practice of scenic interpretation. Through a joint discussion of the two disputed productions, the chapter explores their far-reaching implications for the question of intellectual property in the theatre, contributing to a more nuanced view of censorship and its operations in the field of performance.