Eleutheria (play)

In 1985, Beckett's longtime American publisher, Barney Rosset, was fired after a buyout of Grove Press.

Beckett offered to help Rosset, and proposed translating Eleutheria into English for him to publish, and gave him a copy of the manuscript.

After much wrangling and some legal threats, Lindon and the estate reluctantly allowed Rosset to publish, and issued their own edition in the original French.

The American edition, published in 1995 by Rosset's new company Foxrock, is translated by Michael Brodsky, himself a novelist and playwright.

The plot concerns the efforts of a young member of the bourgeoisie, Victor Krap, to cut himself off from society and his family—while at the same time accepting hand-outs from his mother.

His wife is expecting a visit from her friend, Jeanne Meck, whose husband, a field marshal, has recently died.

After behaving inappropriately with Olga and Marie, making them uncomfortable, Henri becomes interested in Piouk's ideas and muses on the notion of homosexuality, asking Joseph, the servant, to kiss him, who complies.

Dr. Piouk, whom Victor is stunned to learn is now his uncle by marriage, arrives with Olga to see if he wants to take a poison pill and commit suicide, but he does not wish to.

He gives her a wad of money from the drawer, but it's not enough, so he gives her the tools, and tells her to pawn the jacket he thinks that he has left on the stairs to pay the rent.

For much of the act, that part of the stage is empty, except for a moment where Jacques lights the lamp and paws his master's armchair.

On April 13, 1998, the French Embassy in Washington, DC, hosted the first staged public reading of Eleutheria as translated by Michael Brodsky and directed by Robert McNamara.