Rockaby is a short one-woman play

Play (theatre)

A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...

 by Samuel Beckett

Samuel Beckett

Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...

. It was written in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 in 1980, at the request of Daniel Labeille, who produced it on behalf of Programs in the Arts, State University of New York

State University of New York

The State University of New York, abbreviated SUNY , is a system of public institutions of higher education in New York, United States. It is the largest comprehensive system of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States, with a total enrollment of 465,000 students, plus...

, for a festival and symposium in commemoration of Beckett's 75th birthday. The play premiered on April 8, 1981 at the State University of New York at Buffalo, starring Billie Whitelaw

Billie Whitelaw

Billie Honor Whitelaw, CBE is an English actress. She worked in close collaboration with Irish playwright Samuel Beckett for 25 years and is regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of his works...

 and directed by Alan Schneider

Alan Schneider

Alan Schneider was an American theatre director and mentor responsible for more than 100 theatre productions. In 1984 he was honored with a Drama Desk Special Award for serving a wide range of playwrights...

. A documentary film, Rockaby, by D. A. Pennebaker

D. A. Pennebaker

Donn Alan Pennebaker is an American documentary filmmaker and one of the pioneers of Direct Cinema/Cinéma vérité. Performing arts and politics are his primary subjects.-Biography:...

 and Chris Hegedus records the rehearsal process and the first performance. This production went on to be performed at the Annex at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, and, in December 1982, at the Cottesloe, Royal National Theatre

Royal National Theatre

The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...

, London.

Synopsis

A woman dressed in an evening gown is sitting in a wooden rocking chair; no other props or scenery are called for. She sits totally still until the very end of the play. The chair apparently starts and stops “rocking of its own accord, since her feet are visible on its footrest. The motion creates a ghostly atmosphere.” The woman (W) is described in the notes as “Prematurely old. Unkempt grey hair. Huge eyes in white expressionless face.” Beckett is equally specific when it comes to the gown: “Black lacy high-necked … Long sleeves. Jet sequin

Sequin

Sequins are disk-shaped beads used for decorative purposes. They are available in a wide variety of colors and geometrical shapes. Sequins are commonly used on clothing, jewelry, bags, shoes and lots of other accessories. Large sequins, fastened only at the top, have been used on billboards and...

s … Incongruous headdress set with extravagant trimming to catch the light.”

As she rocks she hears a “dull, expressionless” pre-recorded voice (V) – her own – recount details from her own life, and that of her dead mother’s, in the form of, what Eric Brater describes as, “a performance poem in the shape of a play.”

“The French title, Berceuse, means both ‘rocking chair’ and ‘lullaby

Lullaby

A lullaby is a soothing song, usually sung to young children before they go to sleep, with the intention of speeding that process. As a result they are often simple and repetitive. Lullabies can be found in every culture and since the ancient period....

’, while the English Rockaby refers to a traditional lullaby

Rock-a-bye Baby

Rock-a-bye Baby is a nursery rhyme and lullaby. The melody is a variant of the English satirical ballad Lilliburlero. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 2768.-Lyrics:...

 in which a baby’s cradle

Bassinet

A bassinet or bassinette is a bed specifically for babies from birth to about four months, and small enough to provide a "cocoon" that small babies find comforting....

 falls from a treetop, thus bring together in one song the images of birth and death which are so often juxtaposed in Beckett.” Both a traditional cradle and a rocking chair have rockers. “[T]he synchrony

Synchronization

Synchronization is timekeeping which requires the coordination of events to operate a system in unison. The familiar conductor of an orchestra serves to keep the orchestra in time....

 of the rocking motion and the dimeter

Dimeter

In poetry, a dimeter is a metrical line of verse with two feet. Consider Thomas Hood's "Bridge of Sighs:"In poetry, a dimeter is a metrical line of verse with two feet. Consider Thomas Hood's "Bridge of Sighs:"...

 verse line – one back-and-forth per line – plays against the recorded narrative.” To achieve this effect Billie Whitelaw was encouraged by Beckett to “‘think of it as a lullaby’ which she interpreted as ‘soft, monotonous, no colour, soothing, rhythmic … [a] drive toward death.”
The play can be broken down into four sections. All begin with the childlike demand, “More” (consider Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens, published by Richard Bentley in 1838. The story is about an orphan Oliver Twist, who endures a miserable existence in a workhouse and then is placed with an undertaker. He escapes and travels to...

’s request for more gruel). Billie Whitelaw pronounced it more like ‘maw’ – a pun

Pun

The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...

 – “to suggest a need for nourishment.” or even “Ma”.

Intermittently, she joins in three of the lines: ‘time she stopped’, ‘living soul’ and ‘rock her off’” at which point the rocking stops and only starts again when she demands “More,” each time a little softer than the time before. The fact that time play begins with this word indicates that this scene has been being played out for some time before this. At the end of the final section the woman fails to join in with the voice, the rocking ceases and the woman’s head slowly inclines; “she has apparently died.”

Section 1

“The first section details W’s decision to stop going ‘to and fro’ in the outside world in search of ‘another like herself’” evocative of Molloy’s quest to find his mother. The voice’s speech is fragmented and simple “creating an affinity between the language of the child and that of senescence

Senescence

Senescence or biological aging is the change in the biology of an organism as it ages after its maturity. Such changes range from those affecting its cells and their function to those affecting the whole organism...

 and dying.” This could also be a reason for the “huge eyes”.

As with Not I

Not I

Not I is a twenty-minute dramatic monologue written in 1972 by Samuel Beckett, translated as Pas Moi; premiere at the “Samuel Beckett Festival” by the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center, New York , directed by Alan Schneider, with Jessica Tandy and Henderson Forsythe .-Synopsis:Not I takes place...

, the voice speaks in the third person

Grammatical person

Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...

.

Section 2

The second section reprises and therefore emphases the decision taken in Section 1. It also marks the “beginning of her next phase of activity – sitting at her upstairs window, searching the windows opposite to see another ‘one living soul … like herself.’”

“Life is nothing more nor less than the act of perception or the state of being perceived, or, in the words of Bishop Berkeley

George Berkeley

George Berkeley , also known as Bishop Berkeley , was an Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immaterialism"...

 which find echoes throughout Beckett’s work, ‘esse est percipi’ (‘to be is to be perceived’). She sees no one however and is seen by no one. “Voice has become the woman’s own Berkeleyan observer, without whose surveillance any claim to existence would be invalidated.”

Section 3

In the third section the woman has lowered her standards again. She would be content now to simply see a raised blind as evidence of life. At the end of this section she realises it is “time she stopped” even this activity.

“A drawn blind [is] and old custom signifying death” and the last thing she does herself before sitting down in the old rocker is “let down the blind” before closing her own eyelids. This decision [is] first announced in part three by the lines ‘till the day came/in the end came/close of a long day’ reiterated at the opening of part four.

“The objects surrounding [the] ‘window’ endow it with layers of feeling. ‘Pane’ and ‘blind’ imply more than the things of windows, and ironically comment on the classical metaphor

Metaphor

A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...

 of ‘window’ as ‘eyes of the soul.’”

Section 4

In the final “section V describes W’s relocation downstairs to sit in her mother’s rocking chair where she will wait for death” in exactly the same manner as her mother before her.

The action on stage becomes concurrent with the narration which becomes a “little softer each time” until the rocking stops completely. She has stopped actively searching for another and given up watching for proof of the existence of another, but through all of this she has always had the voice for company; now she is “done with that” too and has concluded that it is time she herself “was her own other … living soul.”

The fact that “the word ‘down’ is repeated six times in the first seven lines of this final section, while it is used only once in the preceding sections (‘all blinds down’) … coupled with the play’s first mention of the ‘steep stair’, gives verbal shape to the internal descent that is about to be recounted. The woman is descending into the depths of her self.” Billie Whitelaw has said: “[The voice of the woman in Rockaby] gets softer because she’s getting weaker, and the rock of the chair should be lessening, and the light is lessening. … In fact, the woman in Rockaby is actually going further and further down that steep stair. So with the last ‘More’ she knows she’s on the way out, and as long as that rocker keeps rocking she’s all right. Once it stops she’s gone... I do find it very frightening to do. And I find it desperately lonely to do. I feel very, very lonely in that chair.”

“In French, ‘chair’ means flesh, especially naked flesh, so that the combined image of ‘rocking chair,’ ‘mother rocker,’ and ‘rocking flesh’ bring together inside a single word two realities of subject and object, the object being endowed with subjective realism

Realism (arts)

Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...

.”

The woman selects what initially appears like an unusual outfit for this final scene, an elaborate evening gown. Whether this was the one her mother used when she went through the same steps is unclear; it does however “marks both the uniqueness of the occasion of her retreat to the rocking chair and, as well, her re-enactment of her mother’s action. Whatever her motive in wearing this dress, it constitutes a remnant of an earlier life.”

It has been suggested that the “other” that the woman has been searching for all this time is actually her mother. There is clearly an underlying text here of a little lost girl looking for her ‘mammy’. Having abandoned the search she opts for the rocker’s “embrace” (“those arms at last”) dolled up as her mother so that she can fulfil both roles, she can become her “own other”. “Other” and “mother” sound very similar. As Molloy

Molloy (novel)

Molloy is a novel by Samuel Beckett. The English translation is by Beckett and Patrick Bowles.-Plot introduction:On first appearance the book concerns two different characters, both of whom have interior monologues in the book. As the story moves along the two characters are distinguished by name...

 puts it: “I have her room. I sleep in her bed … I have taken her place. I must resemble her more and more.

Background

Although Billie Whitelaw has very much made the role on W her own it is not strictly true that the part was written specifically for her, even though in a letter to The Actors' Equity Association

Actors' Equity Association

The Actors' Equity Association , commonly referred to as Actors' Equity or simply Equity, is an American labor union representing the world of live theatrical performance, as opposed to film and television performance. However, performers appearing on live stage productions without a book or...

 in 1982 Beckett intimated that it had been. “In his original letter asking Beckett for the play, Labeille had directly associated the name of Irene Worth

Irene Worth

Irene Worth, CBE was an American stage and screen actress who became one of the leading stars of the English and American theatre. -Early life:...

 … with the project.” Whitelaw only came to play the part because Worth was offered a film role and the opening of the play could not be postponed to accommodate her. Beckett declared himself “very pleased with switch to Billie” and her performance benefited from a high degree of support from him as always.

As with all Beckett’s later plays it is clear he has drawn again on personal memories. “There was the frail figure of his maternal grandmother, ‘little Granny’, Annie Roe, dressed in ‘her best black’, sitting in a rocking chair at the window of Cooldrinagh, where she lived out the final years of her life. The woman in the play gazes out at other windows for ‘another living soul’, as Beckett himself sat, often for hours on end, staring at the rows of cell windows on the grey Santé prison

La Santé Prison

La Santé Prison is a prison operated by the Ministry of Justice located in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, France. It is one of the most famous prisons in France, with both VIP and high security wings....

” which backed his apartment in the Boulevard Saint-Jacques.

Needless to say, knowing Beckett to be the art lover he was, one can catch glimpses of a number of paintings he was familiar with: Whistler's Mother

Whistler's Mother

Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist's Mother, famous under its colloquial name Whistler's Mother, is an 1871 oil-on-canvas painting by American-born painter James McNeill Whistler. The painting is , displayed in a frame of Whistler's own design, and is now owned by the Musée d'Orsay in Paris....

, van Gogh’s La Berceuse http://www.lyons.co.uk/html/large/Berceuse.htm or Rembrandt’s Margaretha Trip (de Geer) http://www.nationalgalleryimages.co.uk/Imagedetails.aspx?q=Historical&mode=Subjects&start=39&num=12&ng=NG1675&frm=1. A favourite of his, Beckett owned a copy of Jack B Yeats’s

Jack Butler Yeats

John "Jack" Butler Yeats was an Irish artist. His early style was that of an illustrator; he only began to work regularly in oils in 1906. His early pictures are simple lyrical depictions of landscapes and figures, predominantly from the west of Ireland—especially of his boyhood home of...

 exhibition catalogue, which included one entitled Sleep, a painting of an old woman a sitting by the window, with her head drooped low onto her chest.

Krapp’s Last Tape

As Krapp

Krapp's Last Tape

Krapp's Last Tape is a one-act play, written in English, by Samuel Beckett. Consisting of a cast of one man, it was originally written for Northern Irish actor Patrick Magee and first titled "Magee monologue"...

 sits on the “bench by the weir” he realises his mother has passed on when “the blind went down, one of those dirty brown roller affairs.” In 1950 Beckett himself sat beside his dying mother’s bed “until he could stand it no more [and] went for a walk along the Grand Canal

Grand Canal of Ireland

The Grand Canal is the southernmost of a pair of canals that connect Dublin, in the east of Ireland, with the River Shannon in the west,via Tullamore and a number of other villages and towns, the two canals nearly encircling Dublin's inner city. Its sister canal on the Northside of Dublin is the...

. [When] he returned to the nursing home [he] sat outside for a while on a bench, shivering in the evening wind. When he looked up at her window, he saw the shade go down, the signal she had died.

Murphy

Murphy

Murphy

Murphy is an Anglicized version of two Irish surnames: Ó Murchadha/Ó Murchadh , and Mac Murchaidh/Mac Murchadh derived from the Irish personal name Murchadh, which meant "sea-warrior" or "sea-battler"...

’s rocking chair is the one possession to which his is attached. It gives his body pleasure and sets free his mind. “The chair asserts the pun ‘off his rocker’” which could similarly refer to the dead mother in Rockaby who people maintained had “gone off her head”.

Film

“The room in Film

Film (film)

Film is a film written by Samuel Beckett, his only screenplay. It was commissioned by Barney Rosset of Grove Press. Writing began on 5 April 1963 with a first draft completed within four days. A second draft was produced by 22 May and a forty-leaf shooting script followed thereafter...

contains a rocking chair with a carved headrest, which when ‘O’ sits back, frames his head. His rocking matches his emotions as he gazes at various images of himself and when ‘E’ finally violates the angle of immunity.

External links

• Beckett Bibliography