Hollywood actresses

by The National Archives UK

Samuel Beckett as an absurd dramatist

Samuel Beckett as an Absurd Dramatist

Samuel Bracelay Beckett (1906-1989) is concerned as one of the leading dramatists of the post-modern era. He brought revolutionary changes in the standards and rules by which a drama has been appreciated from many centuries and introduced a new kind of drama that Martin Esslin labelled under the title of ‘The Theatre of the Absurd’. The theatre of the absurd presents the anxiety of man that arises from the fact that he is surrounded by the areas of impenetrable darkness. In this chaos, he will never be able to know his true nature and purpose and no one can provide him the ready-made rules of conduct to follow. Marking the difference between a good play and an absurd play, Martin Esslin opines:

If a good play must have a cleverly constructed story, these have no story or plot to speak of : if a good play is judged by subtlety of characterization and motivation, these are often without recognizable characters and present the audience with almost mechanical puppets; if a good play has to have a fully explained theme, which is neatly exposed and finally solved, these often have neither a beginning nor an end; if a good play is to hold the mirror upto nature and portray the manners and mannerisms of the age in finely observed sketches, these seem often to be reflections of dreams and nightmares’ if a good play relies on witty repartee and pointed dialogues, these often consist of incoherent babblings. (21-22)

     Beckett’s canon of drama is large and varied. He had written two mime plays, six radio plays, one movie, six television scripts, one actorless play and seventeen dramas with speaking actors on the stage. His long series of dramas are collection of jewels in the storage of literature. About his interest in plays Bair says: “It was like a game for him to put speeches on paper, envision the way characters should move and speak – all within the confines of the printed page and his mind. It was much like chess: plotting moves, foreseeing changes and intellectualizing interactions.” (381)

     His first output for stage was an unpublished historical play named Human Wishes. It was planned to be a four act play that discussed the life of Dr. Johnson. After another unpublished play Le Kid his pen lost its fluency on papers due to war. Immediately after which he provided Elutheria which was thought to be elaborated in three acts but never felt the presence of theatre. His masterpiece Waiting for Godot gave him a distinctive voice as a playwright. It came with two acts as Beckett suggested, one act would have been too little and three would have been too much. The play was severely criticized but its depth and its uniqueness were recognized. It is a play about two tramps waiting on a country road for unknown Godot who will reward them for their waiting at the rendezvous. 

After this, Beckett abandoned stage for many years and indulged in translating French version into English. But the notoriety of Waiting for Godot enforced him to write something new and the fruit came in the shape of radio play named All That Fall, followed by Endgame. All That Fall took him into the new world of radio, a different medium but with day to day characters. Endgame presents claustrophobic set, the terminal situation and characters of unidentifiable origins. The play began with the thought of two acts but the interval was deliberately dropped as Beckett thought there was no structural justification for it. There is an ordinary family with everyday quarrels and attachments. The catastrophe of Endgame led Beckett to write down a mime play – ‘Act Without Words’ that presents a mute figure who is struggling to learn the futility of motion.

The experience of mime and radio play inspired him to write Krapp’s Last Tape in which a tape recorder recalls the image of radio play and Krapp’s lonely figure resembles to the image of mime. It brilliantly conveys the agonising poignancy of decrepit old Krapp’s lost to his middle aged self. With the exception of Happy Days that demands interval for technical reasons of planting Winnie in the ground, all his plays since Krapp’s Last Tape are pictured in one act with single scene. Other radio plays such as Embers, Words and Music and Cascando removed all the fog of challenge for Beckett in this media and he moved to film with Film (1965) and television play Eh Joe (1966). He searched affinity with the informality of the small screen and the feasibility of using the camera.

     The invention of new technique of using theatrical space is witnessed through Happy Days (1961), Play (1963), Come and go (1966) and Breathe (1969). Happy Days displays how a woman is engrossed by her grave. This play depicts the courage of human race, who in spite of all disasters, welcomes death happily. Happy Days prepared platform for Play, if the reader/audience can accept a woman buried to her neck under scorching sun, they can easily welcome three urn bound figures with a spotlight. The marriage of Winnie is followed by a love triangle in Play that presents the non- realistic vision of hell where three died persons are suffering the torments for their misdeeds. They are narrating what has happened to them long ago swiveling by a spotlight. The innovation is marked in the twice repetition of the whole play they have just run through. Come and Go and Breathe reduce drama to a very shot length. Come and Go ends only in three minutes and shows the circularity of time during such a short span of time. Breathe presents the brevity of life just in thirty seconds. It presents just an inhalation and exhalation on a bare stage.

His later plays seem to be the study of meaning of theatre – about co-ordination between character and background, light and sound, words and silence. His next play Not I (1972) shows this co-ordination in which light beam and buzzing become the part of discourse. This ten minutes monologue with a spot – lit female mouth against a dark stage recalls the image of Play. Mouth is narrating the story of a woman who finds herself in a limbo to be punished for some unknown sin. It is a challenging play for an actress who has to articulate so rapidly as to be barely comprehensible. That Time makes its existence in 1976, and presents a lit face with three pre- recorded monologues by the same actor. Footfalls presents the slow voice story of a woman and her daughter. The television plays Ghost Trio, ….but the clouds…. and Quad are added in the store of his dramatic canon.

In his last period plays became occasional that were written for specific reason or event. In 1982, Catastrophe supported the Czech dissident Vaclav Havel and A Piece of Monologue gave chance to David Warrilow whose acting had impressed Beckett. His next play Ohio Impromptu staged two identical characters with a book. One of them leads the play and another remains a mute listener. Even in his last days, his plays were inventive and unpredictable. Nacht and Traume televises a dream and his dramatic career was graved with What Where (1984).

     His plays seemed to be esoteric in the beginning and a flurry of articles and letters were written after the first performance of Waiting for Godot. Critics tried hard to interpret his plays but none of the interpretations either Christian or mythological or otherwise fit all the facts. Beckett remained silent and did not confirm a particular explanation. Leonard C. Pronko has acknowledged his talent and comments:

Only the most crassly insensitive person could fail to feel intensely the essential meaning of Beckett’s work. And if he is wakeful he will comprehend the basic dramatic situation, and the issues involved. Beyond this may be “headaches” for the overzealous analyst. (36-37)

He has given imagery not interpretation and now it is up to audience/reader how he interprets the network of his plays. Eliopulos supports this view when he says “the impact of Beckett’s plays lies not in what they say to the world but in what they do to each spectator. Beckett has prepared an “experience” and personal reactions to any experience must be varied.” (33) Originally written in French most of his plays are translated in English by Beckett himself. He also assisted directors of his plays in the setting of stage dimensions. The combination of writer and director made his written text alive. He described each and every physical action if that is not implicit in the speech and recurring pauses and silences mark the rhythm of speech. This contact enables him to be more economical in the use of both language and scenery. He eliminated everything that is of no use for the image he wanted to portrait. The plays of Beckett display most of the features that Martin Esslin has defined for an absurd play.

‘Plot’, a string of events which are well organised to achieve particular aesthetic and artistic effects, finds no developing events which could lead to finale in Beckett’s plays. He had freed the genre form compulsion of two-three hours performance and effectively presented tauter, tighter and polyphonic dramatic structure. In absurd drama, action does not move from one point to another as in other dramatic conventions instead it builds up the concrete and complex patterns of poetic images that the play reflects. The spectator has to wait for the gradual completion of this pattern because only after that he can view the whole image. The completion of image leads him to explore, to ask questions and to search out what the play exactly means.

In Waiting for Godot, until the second coming of messenger boy, the audience/reader is not sure that he is visiting a play which will never end. This kind of drama creates a higher level of dramatic tension and provides more relief when satisfied.