There is no element in the directing, acting, costumes or make-up that refers to a change in the characters.' We have followed his stage instructions down to the tiniest detail. We have used the text in its entirety and have in all other ways remained completely faithful to Beckett's work. He said: 'Silvia and Luisa look like men on stage and I chose them because they have played male roles before. The clause does not mention the sex of the performers.ĭirector Robert Bacci said he was pleased the Pontedera theatre had won its case and called the legal challenge absurd. The theatre company showed the court a clause in its contract with the Beckett estate which said that if performers could not continue in the roles, it was permitted to change them. The actors, who have worked for the theatre company for years, and are near-identical twins and were brought in after two male actors who were originally cast pulled out of the production. There had been no attempt to alter Beckett's work, they said.

The Pontedera theatre counter-claimed, saying that although sisters Luisa and Silvia Pasello were playing the parts, the characters remained totally male. They also cited a ruling in Paris in 1992, when a director was refused permission to use female leads after a judge said it was 'violation of Beckett's moral rights'. They said that, before his death in 1989, the Nobel Literature prizewinner had objected to previous attempts to use women in the production. Lawyers for L'Agenzia Teatrale D'Arborio, which holds the rights to the Irish playwright's works in Italy, and the Society of French Authors, had claimed Beckett would have been unhappy about the use of women in his play about two tramps who wait in vain by a roadside for the arrival of Godot. 'It reiterates that men and women have equal rights, given that it still seems necessary to point this out.' 'The sentence is valuable, not just from the technical point of view of the interpretation of the law,' he said. The theatre company's lawyer, Maurizio Fritelli, hailed the decision as a victory for civil liberties. It ruled this week that men did not have a monopoly on the roles, at least on this occasion. The director and cast ignored the legal challenge, continuing the run of the play, and a court in Rome has now supported their position.

Beckett samuel waiting for godot