Beckett liked knockabout drama. Vaudeville acts where somebody just gets pummeled. Trapped, insulted, or kicked. Punch-and-Judy. I love Beckett. I also like the Three Stooges.
Beckett once said, “Nothing is funnier than unhappiness,” and he was thinking about Charlie Chaplin, the genius of unhappiness. And Beckett’s own work is that, too. It’s failure, unhappiness, ignorance. When you’re not involved, other people’s unhappiness seems to be about the funniest damn thing on earth because you think you can solve it, that you are God, that you are above this, and that their unhappiness is just such useless toil and agony. If it’s you, it ceases to be a comedy.
From Barry Hannah’s Paris Review The Art of Fiction interview, Winter 2004
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