Collection of American Theater Director Alan Schneider (1917-1984)

SAMUEL BECKETT

Fin de Partie Suivi de Acte Sans Paroles. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, [1957]. First trade edition, inscribed by Beckett in the year of publication to the play's first American director, Alan Schneider: "For Alan and Jean Schneider ... from Sam Beckett / Paris March 1957." Alan Schneider has also signed the upper cover in ink. 7 1/2 x 5 inches (19 1/2 x 12 1/2 cm); 122 pp., with two colophon leaves at the end (unopened), the second numbered 308. A few faint stains to cover and a slight lean, small corner loss to rear cover, the pages tanned as usual and with a few small chips, the title of the work translated to English under the inscription, a sound copy of a fragile work. Federman and Fletcher 265.

Provenance: Collection of Alan Schneider (1917-1984); Following the death of Alan Schneider in 1984, these materials, many of which are inscribed by Beckett to “Alan and Jean,” were retained by Schneider’s widow, Eugenie Schneider, who died in the summer of 2025 at 101 years old.

An important presentation copy of Samuel Beckett's second major play Fin de Partie [Endgame], inscribed for Alan Schneider, the play's first American director. This copy is inscribed in March 1957, within weeks of publication, and about a year following Alan Schneider's American debut of Waiting for Godot at the Coconut Grove Playhouse in early 1956. Schneider directed the American premiere of Endgame at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York in 1958, and reviews were much more positive than those for Godot. Brooks Atkinson wrote in the New York Times:

"Mr. Beckett is wise in choosing the form of the myth in which to sound his tocsin on the condition of human society ... Almost nothing happens in the sense of action. But Mr. Beckett, destitute of hope, is flinging a shroud across earth's last revels. He is painting a portrait of desolation, lovelessness, boredom ruthlessness, sorrow, nothingness. Looking out of the window through a telescope, Clov reports what he sees: 'Zero, zero and zero.' Mr. Beckett is preparing us for oblivion. Whether or not his theme is acceptable or rational, his director, Alan Schneider, has had the grace to take him at his own evaluation and stage his play seriously." (New York Times, Beckett's Endgame; 4-Character Play Opens at the Cherry Lane, 29 January 1958).

Atkinson also described Schneider's direction of this nihilistic work as "bustling and perceptive." The Cherry Lane Theatre production of Endgame was awarded the Village Voice Off-Broadway Award for Best Foreign Play (the original award is offered in this section as is, an original poster, and the 1958 cast recording).

Alan Schneider, who had directed Godot and many first productions of Beckett's works, wrote in recollection: ''If there's one artistic disappointment that I allow myself, it's that of not directing enough of the classics, which was where I started, although a number of the plays I directed when they were new have turned out to be classics. If one didn't get to do 'King Lear,' 'Endgame,' after all, comes close.'' (New York Times, Alan Schneider, Pioneering Director, is Dead, 4 May 1984).