Peter O'Shaughnessy Peter O'Shaughnessy Peter O'Shaughnessy OAM (5 October 1923 – 17 July 2013) was an Australian actor, theatre director, producer and writer who presented the work of playwrights ranging from Shakespeare, Shaw, Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov to modern dramatists, such as Ionesco, Pinter and Beckett. He is best known as mentor to and collaborator with comedian Barry Humphries in his early career. O'Shaughnessy was a major exponent of Samuel Beckett, both in Australia and in Ireland. He produced the first "Waiting for Godot" in Australia in 1957. He played Krapp in the Australian premier of "Krapp's Last Tape" at the Arts Theatre
Samuel Beckett of simplifying his style, a change also evidenced in "Watt". After World War II, Beckett turned definitively to the French language as a vehicle. It was this, together with the "revelation" experienced in his mother's room in Dublin—in which he realized that his art must be subjective and drawn wholly from his own inner world—that would result in the works for which Beckett is best remembered today. During the 15 years following the war, Beckett produced four major full-length stage plays: "En attendant Godot" (written 1948–1949; "Waiting for Godot"), "Fin de partie" (1955–1957; "Endgame"), "Krapp's Last Tape" (1958), and "Happy