What Where
Encyclopedia
What Where is Samuel Beckett
's last play
produced following a request for a new work for the 1983 Autumn Festival in Graz
, Austria
. It was written between February and March 1983 initially in French
as Quoi où and translated by Beckett himself.
: “We are the last five.” Only four characters appear throughout the performance however, Bam, Bom, Bim, and Bem (an echo of Rimbaud’s
sonnet
, “Voyelles”) but the voice does not belong to a putative Bum, rather it is the “Voice of Bam”. The men are all dressed in identical grey gowns with the same long grey hair.
Before the drama proper commences there is a quick run through of the action without words. The four characters enter and exit, as they will all do later, in a style more reminiscent of Quad
than the two Act Without Words mime
s. Satisfied with this the Voice of Bam says, “Good,” switches off the light and prepares us for the action.
The play follows a seasonal pattern. The voice tells us that it is spring and turns on the light. Bom enters from the north and is questioned by Bam as to the results of an interrogation. We do not learn who has been subjected to his ministrations – the assumption is Bum – only that he was given “the works”, that he “wept”, “screamed” and although he “[b]egged for mercy” he still refused to “say it”.
The voice is dissatisfied with how this scene is playing out and makes them start again. This time Bam wants to know if Bom attempted to revive the man. Bom claims that he couldn’t at which point Bam accuses him of lying saying that he had been given the information and he would also be subjected to the same grilling until he confessed.
Bim appears and asks what information he needs to extract from Bom. Bam maintains he only wants to know: “That he said it to him.” Bim wants to make sure that is all he needs to obtain and then he can stop. Bam tells him, “Yes.” Bam's voice repeats "not good, I start again". Bim then asks what is he to confess. Bam tells him that he needs to confess that he said "it" to him. Bim asks if that is all and Bam says "and where" Bim asks again and Bam says yes. Bim then calls Bom to come with him and they both exit.
The same scene is now replayed only it is summer. The Voice of Bam tells us that time has passed but no effort is made to visually convey this fact; it is simply stated. Bim reappears and is questioned. Bam wants to know if he said “it” but the voice is again unhappy and makes them start again. This time Bim is asked if he managed to find out “where” from Bom which he had not as he had not been asked to. In the end Bem appears and is told to find out “where” from Bim. Bem and Bim both exit like before.
We are again informed that time has passed. It is now autumn and Bem returns to report he has been unable to extract “where” from Bim. The voice no longer needs to hear to complete interchange and jumps to Bam accusing Bim of lying and threatening him with “the works”. Since there is no one left to carry out his orders Bam escorts Bem away himself.
The voice tells us that winter has now arrived. Bam appears from the west and waits with his head bowed. There is no one left to ask if he got the information or to accuse him of lying if he has proven as unsuccessful as the others.
The voice tells us that he is alone now, “[i]n the present as were I still.” There are no more journeys to make and nothing to do apart from let time pass. He leaves the audience to try and make sense of things on their own and switches the light off.
From the time of his collection of stories More Pricks Than Kicks
Bim and Bom appear periodically in Beckett's work. These were Russia
n clown
s of the 1920s and ‘30s
, who for a while were granted permission by the Soviet
authorities to satirize
the shortcomings of the state
. There is a Wikipedia article on Bim Bom
which treats the Russian clowns as if they were an individual. as does the issue dated 30 April 1956. The Faber Companion to Samuel Beckett has an entry for "Bim and Bom" (p 56) which also refers to them in the plural
. James Knowlson in his biography of Beckett, Damned to Fame, suggests that the names may echo Richard Aldington
's Enter Bim and Bom, the epilogue
to his 1931 novel The Colonel's Daughter, on an English football field to comment upon the degeneration of English society
. (p 744 n 74) and “became for Beckett emblem
s of human cruelty, disguised under a comic garb.”
They first appear in the short story Yellow, then in Murphy
(along with Bum), in draft passages deleted from Waiting for Godot
and Endgame
, Bom and Bem pop up in How It Is
before finally bowing out in What Where.
’s song cycle
, Winterreise
(Winter Journey) … [and ] used to listen spellbound to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
’s stunning recording of the songs … He also knew about his connections with the town of Graz [Schubert had stayed there for a time] … In the Schubert Lied
er, the traveller in the opening poem
, Gute Nacht (Good Night) has lost his love and journeys disconsolately from May into snowy winter … [This] provided Beckett with the formal structure of his play, moving from spring to winter … suggesting death.”
’s poignant poem, Oft, in the Stilly Night, which includes the lines ‘Sad memory brings the light / Of other days around me’.”
edge exists which is why many opt for a political
reading but, as with Catastrophe
before it, there is more going on here. It can also be interpreted as a portrait
of a single consciousness engaged in a self-reflective act. When the Voice of Bam wants the action to restart, rather than instruct the two player to “Start again,” it says – significantly – “I start again” suggesting that the words and actions of the two men are being directly controlled, remembered or imagined by the consciousness behind the voice, presumably the Bam as he is in the present.
A political reading cannot be simply dismissed though since Beckett himself “briefly entertained making each character wear a tarboosh
, fezlike headgear associated with Armenia
ns.” Even today “[t]orture
and ill-treatment in police custody
remain widespread in Armenia. Torture usually occurs in pre-trial
detention
with the aim of coercing a confession or evidence against third parties.”
Beckett is famously reported as saying of What Where: "I don't know what it means. Don't ask me what it means. It's an object." There is clearly a danger in taking this remark at face value. Beckett undoubtedly had something quite specific in mind as can be seen in the way he moulded his vision over the three productions in America
, Germany
and France
detailed below. One significant remark he did make was that the Voice of Bam could be thought as coming from “beyond the grave”.
Beckett, in Proust
, calls memory “some miracle of analogy
;” he qualifies it in the preceding phrase as “an accident”. The inability to remember, to get at the truth, is a focal point in much of his work. Beckett’s characters (e.g. May in Footfalls
, Mouth in Not I
) seem doomed to repeat themselves, as much as the accidents or miracles of analogy allow them some momentary insight into their situations. For Beckett, memory is second-hand knowledge. You were not there. Another "you" was. Can you trust what he says he saw and heard?
This would not be the first time Beckett has fragmented an individual for dramatic effect (e.g. That Time
or Ohio Impromptu
). Beckett believes people to be in a continual state of flux, often finding it hard to relate to earlier versions of their own selves (e.g. Krapp: Just been listening to that stupid bastard I took myself for thirty years ago, hard to believe I was ever as bad as that.). With each passing day “we are other”, Beckett notes in his monograph
, “no longer what we were before the calamity of yesterday.” Bam is not wallowing in nostalgia
though (like the women in Come and Go
), rather he is trying to remember something – an “it”, a “when”, a “where” – that insists on remaining just out of reach.
Those “familiar with his preoccupation, themes, images, figures of speech
… may assume that the 'what where' question is a kind of Oedipus' riddle
and that the answer to it cannot be found, despite an obligation to ask the question.” Rather than simply “What?” and “Where?” the full questions could easily be: “What is the meaning of life?” and “Where does it all come from?”
If Bam is trying to ascertain the details surrounding a particular crime, the question has to be asked: what crime? James Knowlson believes “that crime appears likely to be Calderón’s
‘original sin
of being born’, which Beckett had evoked at the beginning of his career in this essay Proust. Consequently, the overall perpetrator is unlikely ever to be known, let alone apprehended.”
in March 1983: “Just finished a short piece – theatre – for the Graz autumn festival, to my dissatisfaction.” As had become his working practice, he refined it in rehearsals over several years until he was better pleased with the result. For example, many of the changes television made possible were then adopted back into the stage version.
Theatre, New York
on 15th June 1983 directed by Alan Schneider
, was (naturally) totally faithful to Beckett’s text. The play seemed surprisingly long and showed real ‘longueurs’ not only in the production but also in the text.” “[It] arrived at the last minute when the first two plays were already in rehearsal [having] been hastily translated by the author to finish off Alan Schneider’s evening.”
“Reviewers … tended to concentrate almost exclusively on the play’s possible political resonance. Alan Schneider, commenting on this, wrote to Beckett: ‘What Where most people keep wanting to interpret on the literal political level – I think it may suffer from coming after Catastrophe.’”
to direct the German
version Was Wo. Due to ill health the project ended up being postponed. The filming finally took place at the studios of Süddeutscher Rundfunk
between 18 and 25 June 1985. “This was to be his last trip abroad.” The work was transmitted on 13 June 1986.
“The production was a dramatic distillation and transformation of the original, effectively a recreation.” Eric Brater contends that “On screen Beckett more clearly establishes that this is a story about Bam remembering … Torture becomes more explicitly self-inflicted, a function of memory, remorse and the relentless need to tell a story.”
“Instead of players in long gray gowns, their own corporeality
suspect, the four figures of the revised, television What Where now appeared as floating faces dissolving in and out [of the light] … Neither representation of Bam then is corporeal, Beckett representing instead a spectre and its mirror reflection, and the rest of the figures of What Where are ghosts as well, all the more so as they are represented by the patterns of dots on the television screen. What characters, what bodies, finally exist in What Where are created by voice, less absent presences than present absences.”
Beckett referred to the lit playing area in this production as the “field of memory”. “The clear indication is that what we are seeing is both a memory and a scenario
: instructions come from the megaphone, the Voice of Bam controls what we see, puts the characters through their movements rapidly without words like a film running over its spools at rewind speed, and then starts again, occasionally stopping when Bam is not satisfied and a phrase is improved to add to the force of the theme. [The play can therefore be compared with Krapp’s Last Tape
but it also] shares many similarities with Ohio Impromptu, the identical characters in appearance and dress, the unwinding backwards of events and the stylization of image and movement in particular.” With Krapp his memories have a certain degree of reliability. Not so with Bam. “[T]he figures in What Where emerge from beyond the grave, ghosts of memories that never really were.” They are given form as if they existed.
“In this version the difference between the two Bams was achieved mechanically.” “There was a slightly higher frequency
in [the voice] of the younger Bam, and a lower deeper effect in the older Bam.” “‘In his Stuggart notebook Beckett wrote that “S (Stimme [Voice]) = mirror reflection of Bam’s face … S’s voice prerecorded. Bam’s but changed.’ This enlarged and distorted death mask
… replaced the suspended ‘megaphone at head level’ of the original publication.” The altered voices of Bam creates, as Walter Asmus suggests, “the ghost Bam, dead Bam, [a] distorted image of a face in a grave, somewhere not in this world any longer, imagining that he comes back to life in the world, dreaming and seeing himself as a … face on the screen.” “Jim Lewis, the cameraman
with whom Beckett worked on the German TV production ... suggested that at least with regard to ‘V’ – ‘Voice of Bam’ it is a matter of being beyond death as this represents, ‘The image of Bam in the beyond or beyond the grave or whatever you want to call it’”. The stage Bam is therefore an “historical projection” of the incorporeal
voice emanating from the loudspeaker.
“The original play had a substantial emphasis on eliciting ‘where’ from the victims, even where the victim said ‘where’. Beckett … eliminated that potentially confusing repetition, substituting a balanced ‘He didn’t say what?’ ‘He didn’t say where?’ into each encounter. The emphasis on ‘where’ was decreased, many changed to ‘it’ and each ‘where’ followed by a ‘what’.”
The six performances took place at the Théâtre du Rond-Point
in Paris
and featured David Warrilow as Bam. The revised text (known as What Where II) did away with the opening mime, Bam’s interventions and the characters were again represented only as floating heads. “Je recommence” (I start again) was amended to “Ici Bam” (Here is Bam). “Because of technical difficulties, the French stage production replaced the enlarged and distorted reflection of Bam’s face with a halo
, a ring of diffuse orange light. Chabert’s production note is as follows: ‘rond lumineux = source de Voix,’” Additionally, “[i]n place of the cowl
-covered heads that created the impression of floating faces, Beckett substituted shaved skulls. The field of memory was now implicit … On the stage the players appeared unrealistically high standing on a concealed two-foot platform, their heads aligned with the pulsing light that echoed the TV tube.”
As with the German television production the Voice of Bam was now represented as an eerily distorted face, hovering in the upper left corner of a dark screen. The Modern Word website describes it “like a living, concave mask. His voice is sepulchral and chilling, yet conveys a sad, lonely quality as well. Bam, Bom, Bim, and Bem appear as detached faces along the bottom of the screen, floating in the black void and illuminated in stark white contrast. The dialogue is delivered in brisk, metallic monotones, emphasizing the sameness of the characters and the repetitiveness of the seasonal interrogations.”
project in December 1999. It was filmed at Ardmore Studios
in County Wicklow
, Ireland
. Bam is played and voiced by Sean McGinley
. Gary Lewis
plays all other characters and the original text and stage instructions are used including the opening mime.
O'Donnell sets the play within a claustrophobic, high-tech
library, its tall shelves bordered by strips of fluorescent
lighting. When the Voice of Bam declares, "I switch on," the luminescent tubes stutter awake to the sound of breakers being thrown. The voice itself is dispassionate and calm; issuing from a megaphone-shaped loudspeaker
fixed above the central doors, it evokes HAL 9000
from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey
. The metal clanging of doors and the crisp footsteps on the metallic floor accentuate the chilly atmosphere.
O'Donnell said in interview: “[T]here is no set in the original play, but I argued that the whole play is about power
and the abuse of power, and how information is power, so we used the library as a metaphor
for somebody who has control of all the power and all the information. When it came to casting, I was looking for a particular type of actor – somebody who could bring a sort of menacing quality to the screen. There is a lot of menace in the play. What Where is about a brooding, palpable evil, which is a theme that occurs in Beckett's other work.”
Presented thus is it easy to see What Where as Beckett’s Nineteen Eighty-Four
. At the end of Catastrophe there is a flicker of hope. Not so here. Just as Winston Smith
is beaten into submission so are these characters. O’Donnell brings “the scene closer to realism
and create[s] a dark, sinister atmosphere by homing in on the faces of the two actors … As he said, ‘Filming allows you to show a close-up
of a terrified man, bringing a different edge to the work.’”
Before switching off for the last time Bam’s voice instructs the audience: “Make sense who may” but how do you make sense out of something senseless? And is any adjective
used more often to describe violence? Beckett has left it up to the viewer to supply his own meaning.
by Heinz Holliger
, composed in 1988 and first released on a commercial recording in 1997.
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...
's last 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...
produced following a request for a new work for the 1983 Autumn Festival in Graz
Graz
The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
. It was written between February and March 1983 initially in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
as Quoi où and translated by Beckett himself.
Synopsis
The play begins with a voice issuing forth from a dimly lit megaphoneMegaphone
A megaphone, speaking-trumpet, bullhorn, blowhorn, or loud hailer is a portable, usually hand-held, cone-shaped horn used to amplify a person’s voice or other sounds towards a targeted direction. This is accomplished by channelling the sound through the megaphone, which also serves to match the...
: “We are the last five.” Only four characters appear throughout the performance however, Bam, Bom, Bim, and Bem (an echo of Rimbaud’s
Arthur Rimbaud
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...
sonnet
Sonnet
A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...
, “Voyelles”) but the voice does not belong to a putative Bum, rather it is the “Voice of Bam”. The men are all dressed in identical grey gowns with the same long grey hair.
Before the drama proper commences there is a quick run through of the action without words. The four characters enter and exit, as they will all do later, in a style more reminiscent of Quad
Quad (play)
Samuel Beckett’s Quad was written in 1981 and first appeared in print in 1984 where the work is described as “[a] piece for four players, light and percussion” and has also been called a “ballet for four people.” It resembles something the shape-theatre ensemble Mummenschanz might have conceived,...
than the two Act Without Words mime
Mime
The word mime is used to refer to a mime artist who uses a theatrical medium or performance art involving the acting out of a story through body motions without use of speech.Mime may also refer to:* Mime, an alternative word for lip sync...
s. Satisfied with this the Voice of Bam says, “Good,” switches off the light and prepares us for the action.
The play follows a seasonal pattern. The voice tells us that it is spring and turns on the light. Bom enters from the north and is questioned by Bam as to the results of an interrogation. We do not learn who has been subjected to his ministrations – the assumption is Bum – only that he was given “the works”, that he “wept”, “screamed” and although he “[b]egged for mercy” he still refused to “say it”.
The voice is dissatisfied with how this scene is playing out and makes them start again. This time Bam wants to know if Bom attempted to revive the man. Bom claims that he couldn’t at which point Bam accuses him of lying saying that he had been given the information and he would also be subjected to the same grilling until he confessed.
Bim appears and asks what information he needs to extract from Bom. Bam maintains he only wants to know: “That he said it to him.” Bim wants to make sure that is all he needs to obtain and then he can stop. Bam tells him, “Yes.” Bam's voice repeats "not good, I start again". Bim then asks what is he to confess. Bam tells him that he needs to confess that he said "it" to him. Bim asks if that is all and Bam says "and where" Bim asks again and Bam says yes. Bim then calls Bom to come with him and they both exit.
The same scene is now replayed only it is summer. The Voice of Bam tells us that time has passed but no effort is made to visually convey this fact; it is simply stated. Bim reappears and is questioned. Bam wants to know if he said “it” but the voice is again unhappy and makes them start again. This time Bim is asked if he managed to find out “where” from Bom which he had not as he had not been asked to. In the end Bem appears and is told to find out “where” from Bim. Bem and Bim both exit like before.
We are again informed that time has passed. It is now autumn and Bem returns to report he has been unable to extract “where” from Bim. The voice no longer needs to hear to complete interchange and jumps to Bam accusing Bim of lying and threatening him with “the works”. Since there is no one left to carry out his orders Bam escorts Bem away himself.
The voice tells us that winter has now arrived. Bam appears from the west and waits with his head bowed. There is no one left to ask if he got the information or to accuse him of lying if he has proven as unsuccessful as the others.
The voice tells us that he is alone now, “[i]n the present as were I still.” There are no more journeys to make and nothing to do apart from let time pass. He leaves the audience to try and make sense of things on their own and switches the light off.
Bim and Bom
Just as Beckett has a fondness for characters whose names begin with M, there are also a host of characters whose names end with an M.From the time of his collection of stories More Pricks Than Kicks
More Pricks Than Kicks
More Pricks Than Kicks is a collection of short prose by Samuel Beckett, first published in 1934. It contains extracts from his earlier novel, Dream of Fair to Middling Women , as well as other short stories....
Bim and Bom appear periodically in Beckett's work. These were Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n clown
Clown
Clowns are comic performers stereotypically characterized by the grotesque image of the circus clown's colored wigs, stylistic makeup, outlandish costumes, unusually large footwear, and red nose, which evolved to project their actions to large audiences. Other less grotesque styles have also...
s of the 1920s and ‘30s
1930s
File:1930s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: Dorothea Lange's photo of the homeless Florence Thompson show the effects of the Great Depression; Due to the economic collapse, the farms become dry and the Dust Bowl spreads through America; The Battle of Wuhan during the Second Sino-Japanese...
, who for a while were granted permission by the Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
authorities to satirize
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
the shortcomings of the state
Sovereign state
A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...
. There is a Wikipedia article on Bim Bom
Bim Bom
Bim Bom was a Moscow circus clown duo consisting of Ivan Radunsky and various "Boms" throughout the years. The clown act was enormously popular, but often banned or censored due to its satirical political content. Each act would begin with an original song and dance performed by Bim...
which treats the Russian clowns as if they were an individual. as does the issue dated 30 April 1956. The Faber Companion to Samuel Beckett has an entry for "Bim and Bom" (p 56) which also refers to them in the plural
Plural
In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
. James Knowlson in his biography of Beckett, Damned to Fame, suggests that the names may echo Richard Aldington
Richard Aldington
Richard Aldington , born Edward Godfree Aldington, was an English writer and poet.Aldington was best known for his World War I poetry, the 1929 novel, Death of a Hero, and the controversy arising from his 1955 Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Inquiry...
's Enter Bim and Bom, the epilogue
Epilogue
An epilogue, epilog or afterword is a piece of writing at the end of a work of literature or drama, usually used to bring closure to the work...
to his 1931 novel The Colonel's Daughter, on an English football field to comment upon the degeneration of English society
Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
. (p 744 n 74) and “became for Beckett emblem
Emblem
An emblem is a pictorial image, abstract or representational, that epitomizes a concept — e.g., a moral truth, or an allegory — or that represents a person, such as a king or saint.-Distinction: emblem and symbol:...
s of human cruelty, disguised under a comic garb.”
They first appear in the short story Yellow, then in Murphy
Murphy (novel)
Murphy, first published in 1938, is a novel as well as the third work of prose fiction by the Irish author and dramatist Samuel Beckett. The book was Beckett's second published prose work after the short-story collection More Pricks than Kicks and his unpublished first novel Dream of Fair to...
(along with Bum), in draft passages deleted from Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's...
and Endgame
Endgame (play)
Endgame, by Samuel Beckett, is a one-act play with four characters, written in a style associated with the Theatre of the Absurd. It was originally written in French ; as was his custom, Beckett himself translated it into English. The play was first performed in a French-language production at the...
, Bom and Bem pop up in How It Is
How It Is
How It Is is a novel by Samuel Beckett first published in French as Comment c'est by Les Editions de Minuit in 1961. The Grove Press published Beckett's English translation in 1964...
before finally bowing out in What Where.
Schubert
“Beckett adored Franz SchubertFranz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
’s song cycle
Song cycle
A song cycle is a group of songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a single entity. As a rule, all of the songs are by the same composer and often use words from the same poet or lyricist. Unification can be achieved by a narrative or a persona common to the songs, or even, as in Schumann's...
, Winterreise
Winterreise
Winterreise is a song cycle for voice and piano by Franz Schubert , a setting of 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller. It is the second of Schubert's two great song cycles on Müller's poems, the earlier being Die schöne Müllerin...
(Winter Journey) … [and ] used to listen spellbound to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is a retired German lyric baritone and conductor of classical music, one of the most famous lieder performers of the post-war period and "one of the supreme vocal artists of the 20th century"...
’s stunning recording of the songs … He also knew about his connections with the town of Graz [Schubert had stayed there for a time] … In the Schubert Lied
Lied
is a German word literally meaning "song", usually used to describe romantic songs setting German poems of reasonably high literary aspirations, especially during the nineteenth century, beginning with Carl Loewe, Heinrich Marschner, and Franz Schubert and culminating with Hugo Wolf...
er, the traveller in the opening poem
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, Gute Nacht (Good Night) has lost his love and journeys disconsolately from May into snowy winter … [This] provided Beckett with the formal structure of his play, moving from spring to winter … suggesting death.”
Thomas Moore
In his notes for the German TV production, Beckett wrote “‘For PA [i.e. playing area] the light of other days’. And he admitted that he expressly associated this play with Thomas MooreThomas Moore
Thomas Moore was an Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, now best remembered for the lyrics of The Minstrel Boy and The Last Rose of Summer. He was responsible, with John Murray, for burning Lord Byron's memoirs after his death...
’s poignant poem, Oft, in the Stilly Night, which includes the lines ‘Sad memory brings the light / Of other days around me’.”
Interpretation
As with many of Beckett’s later works for the stage and television, one definitive interpretation of What Where has proven elusive. A clear totalitarianTotalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
edge exists which is why many opt for a political
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
reading but, as with Catastrophe
Catastrophe (play)
Catastrophe is a short play by Samuel Beckett, written in French in 1982 at the invitation of A.I.D.A. and “[f]irst produced in the Avignon Festival … Beckett considered it ‘massacred.’” It is one of his few plays to deal with a political theme and, arguably, holds the title of Beckett's most...
before it, there is more going on here. It can also be interpreted as a portrait
Portrait (literature)
In literature, the term portrait refers to a written description or analysis of a person or thing. A written portrait often gives deep insight, and offers an analysis that goes far beyond the superficial...
of a single consciousness engaged in a self-reflective act. When the Voice of Bam wants the action to restart, rather than instruct the two player to “Start again,” it says – significantly – “I start again” suggesting that the words and actions of the two men are being directly controlled, remembered or imagined by the consciousness behind the voice, presumably the Bam as he is in the present.
A political reading cannot be simply dismissed though since Beckett himself “briefly entertained making each character wear a tarboosh
Fez (clothing)
The fez , or tarboosh is a felt hat either in the shape of a red truncated cone or in the shape of a short cylinder made of kilim fabric. Both usually have tassels...
, fezlike headgear associated with Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
ns.” Even today “[t]orture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
and ill-treatment in police custody
Arrest
An arrest is the act of depriving a person of his or her liberty usually in relation to the purported investigation and prevention of crime and presenting into the criminal justice system or harm to oneself or others...
remain widespread in Armenia. Torture usually occurs in pre-trial
Trial (law)
In law, a trial is when parties to a dispute come together to present information in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court...
detention
Detention (imprisonment)
Detention is the process when a state, government or citizen lawfully holds a person by removing their freedom of liberty at that time. This can be due to criminal charges being raised against the individual as part of a prosecution or to protect a person or property...
with the aim of coercing a confession or evidence against third parties.”
Beckett is famously reported as saying of What Where: "I don't know what it means. Don't ask me what it means. It's an object." There is clearly a danger in taking this remark at face value. Beckett undoubtedly had something quite specific in mind as can be seen in the way he moulded his vision over the three productions in America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
detailed below. One significant remark he did make was that the Voice of Bam could be thought as coming from “beyond the grave”.
Beckett, in Proust
Proust (Beckett essay)
Samuel Beckett's essay Proust, from 1930, is an aesthetic and epistemological manifesto, which is more concerned with Beckett's influences and preoccupations than with its ostensible subject.-History:...
, calls memory “some miracle of analogy
Analogy
Analogy is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject to another particular subject , and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process...
;” he qualifies it in the preceding phrase as “an accident”. The inability to remember, to get at the truth, is a focal point in much of his work. Beckett’s characters (e.g. May in Footfalls
Footfalls
Footfalls is a play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English, between 2 March and December 1975 and was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre as part of the Samuel Beckett Festival, on May 20, 1976 directed by Beckett himself. Billie Whitelaw, for whom the piece had been written, played...
, Mouth in 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...
) seem doomed to repeat themselves, as much as the accidents or miracles of analogy allow them some momentary insight into their situations. For Beckett, memory is second-hand knowledge. You were not there. Another "you" was. Can you trust what he says he saw and heard?
This would not be the first time Beckett has fragmented an individual for dramatic effect (e.g. That Time
That Time
For the song "That Time" by Regina Spektor see Begin to HopeThat Time is a one-act play by Samuel Beckett, written in English between 8 June 1974 and August 1975...
or Ohio Impromptu
Ohio Impromptu
Ohio Impromptu is a “playlet” by Samuel Beckett.Written in English in 1980, it began as a favour to S.E. Gontarski, who requested a dramatic piece to be performed at an academic symposium in Columbus, Ohio in honour of Beckett’s seventy-fifth birthday. Beckett was uncomfortable writing to order and...
). Beckett believes people to be in a continual state of flux, often finding it hard to relate to earlier versions of their own selves (e.g. Krapp: Just been listening to that stupid bastard I took myself for thirty years ago, hard to believe I was ever as bad as that.). With each passing day “we are other”, Beckett notes in his monograph
Monograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...
, “no longer what we were before the calamity of yesterday.” Bam is not wallowing in nostalgia
Nostalgia
The term nostalgia describes a yearning for the past, often in idealized form.The word is a learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of , meaning "returning home", a Homeric word, and , meaning "pain, ache"...
though (like the women in Come and Go
Come and Go
Come and Go is a short play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English in January 1965 and first performed at the Schillertheater, Berlin on 14 January 1966...
), rather he is trying to remember something – an “it”, a “when”, a “where” – that insists on remaining just out of reach.
Those “familiar with his preoccupation, themes, images, figures of speech
Figure of speech
A figure of speech is the use of a word or words diverging from its usual meaning. It can also be a special repetition, arrangement or omission of words with literal meaning, or a phrase with a specialized meaning not based on the literal meaning of the words in it, as in idiom, metaphor, simile,...
… may assume that the 'what where' question is a kind of Oedipus' riddle
Oedipus the King
Oedipus the King , also known by the Latin title Oedipus Rex, is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles that was first performed c. 429 BCE. It was the second of Sophocles's three Theban plays to be produced, but it comes first in the internal chronology, followed by Oedipus at Colonus and then Antigone...
and that the answer to it cannot be found, despite an obligation to ask the question.” Rather than simply “What?” and “Where?” the full questions could easily be: “What is the meaning of life?” and “Where does it all come from?”
If Bam is trying to ascertain the details surrounding a particular crime, the question has to be asked: what crime? James Knowlson believes “that crime appears likely to be Calderón’s
Pedro Calderón de la Barca
Pedro Calderón de la Barca y Barreda González de Henao Ruiz de Blasco y Riaño usually referred as Pedro Calderón de la Barca , was a dramatist, poet and writer of the Spanish Golden Age. During certain periods of his life he was also a soldier and a Roman Catholic priest...
‘original sin
Original sin
Original sin is, according to a Christian theological doctrine, humanity's state of sin resulting from the Fall of Man. This condition has been characterized in many ways, ranging from something as insignificant as a slight deficiency, or a tendency toward sin yet without collective guilt, referred...
of being born’, which Beckett had evoked at the beginning of his career in this essay Proust. Consequently, the overall perpetrator is unlikely ever to be known, let alone apprehended.”
Production history
Beckett was not happy with the piece when first completed. He wrote to Kay BoyleKay Boyle
Kay Boyle was an American writer, educator, and political activist.- Early years :The granddaughter of a publisher, Kay Boyle was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and grew up in several cities but principally in Cincinnati, Ohio...
in March 1983: “Just finished a short piece – theatre – for the Graz autumn festival, to my dissatisfaction.” As had become his working practice, he refined it in rehearsals over several years until he was better pleased with the result. For example, many of the changes television made possible were then adopted back into the stage version.
1983
“The first production of the play at the Harold ClurmanHarold Clurman
Harold Edgar Clurman was a visionary American theatre director and drama critic, "one of the most influential in the United States". He was most notable as one of the three founders of the New York City's Group Theatre...
Theatre, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
on 15th June 1983 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...
, was (naturally) totally faithful to Beckett’s text. The play seemed surprisingly long and showed real ‘longueurs’ not only in the production but also in the text.” “[It] arrived at the last minute when the first two plays were already in rehearsal [having] been hastily translated by the author to finish off Alan Schneider’s evening.”
“Reviewers … tended to concentrate almost exclusively on the play’s possible political resonance. Alan Schneider, commenting on this, wrote to Beckett: ‘What Where most people keep wanting to interpret on the literal political level – I think it may suffer from coming after Catastrophe.’”
1985
In December 1983 Beckett planned to go to StuttgartStuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
to direct the German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
version Was Wo. Due to ill health the project ended up being postponed. The filming finally took place at the studios of Süddeutscher Rundfunk
Süddeutscher Rundfunk
The Süddeutscher Rundfunk was a German radio and television station operating in the northern part of the state of Baden-Württemberg. It existed from 1949 to 1998, when it was merged with the then Südwestfunk to form the Südwestrundfunk....
between 18 and 25 June 1985. “This was to be his last trip abroad.” The work was transmitted on 13 June 1986.
“The production was a dramatic distillation and transformation of the original, effectively a recreation.” Eric Brater contends that “On screen Beckett more clearly establishes that this is a story about Bam remembering … Torture becomes more explicitly self-inflicted, a function of memory, remorse and the relentless need to tell a story.”
“Instead of players in long gray gowns, their own corporeality
Undead
Undead is a collective name for fictional, mythological, or legendary beings that are deceased and yet behave as if alive. Undead may be incorporeal, such as ghosts, or corporeal, such as vampires and zombies...
suspect, the four figures of the revised, television What Where now appeared as floating faces dissolving in and out [of the light] … Neither representation of Bam then is corporeal, Beckett representing instead a spectre and its mirror reflection, and the rest of the figures of What Where are ghosts as well, all the more so as they are represented by the patterns of dots on the television screen. What characters, what bodies, finally exist in What Where are created by voice, less absent presences than present absences.”
Beckett referred to the lit playing area in this production as the “field of memory”. “The clear indication is that what we are seeing is both a memory and a scenario
Scenario
A scenario is a synoptical collage of an event or series of actions and events. In the Commedia dell'arte it was an outline of entrances, exits, and action describing the plot of a play that was literally pinned to the back of the scenery...
: instructions come from the megaphone, the Voice of Bam controls what we see, puts the characters through their movements rapidly without words like a film running over its spools at rewind speed, and then starts again, occasionally stopping when Bam is not satisfied and a phrase is improved to add to the force of the theme. [The play can therefore be compared with Krapp’s Last Tape
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"...
but it also] shares many similarities with Ohio Impromptu, the identical characters in appearance and dress, the unwinding backwards of events and the stylization of image and movement in particular.” With Krapp his memories have a certain degree of reliability. Not so with Bam. “[T]he figures in What Where emerge from beyond the grave, ghosts of memories that never really were.” They are given form as if they existed.
“In this version the difference between the two Bams was achieved mechanically.” “There was a slightly higher frequency
Frequency
Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time. It is also referred to as temporal frequency.The period is the duration of one cycle in a repeating event, so the period is the reciprocal of the frequency...
in [the voice] of the younger Bam, and a lower deeper effect in the older Bam.” “‘In his Stuggart notebook Beckett wrote that “S (Stimme [Voice]) = mirror reflection of Bam’s face … S’s voice prerecorded. Bam’s but changed.’ This enlarged and distorted death mask
Death mask
In Western cultures a death mask is a wax or plaster cast made of a person’s face following death. Death masks may be mementos of the dead, or be used for creation of portraits...
… replaced the suspended ‘megaphone at head level’ of the original publication.” The altered voices of Bam creates, as Walter Asmus suggests, “the ghost Bam, dead Bam, [a] distorted image of a face in a grave, somewhere not in this world any longer, imagining that he comes back to life in the world, dreaming and seeing himself as a … face on the screen.” “Jim Lewis, the cameraman
Cinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...
with whom Beckett worked on the German TV production ... suggested that at least with regard to ‘V’ – ‘Voice of Bam’ it is a matter of being beyond death as this represents, ‘The image of Bam in the beyond or beyond the grave or whatever you want to call it’”. The stage Bam is therefore an “historical projection” of the incorporeal
Incorporeal
Incorporeal or uncarnate means without the nature of a body or substance . The idea of incorporeality refers to the notion that there is an incorporeal realm of existence, or "place", that is distinct from the corporeal or material universe. Incorporeal beings or objects are not made out of matter...
voice emanating from the loudspeaker.
“The original play had a substantial emphasis on eliciting ‘where’ from the victims, even where the victim said ‘where’. Beckett … eliminated that potentially confusing repetition, substituting a balanced ‘He didn’t say what?’ ‘He didn’t say where?’ into each encounter. The emphasis on ‘where’ was decreased, many changed to ‘it’ and each ‘where’ followed by a ‘what’.”
1986
“The [German] television play showed three characters who simply appear and disappear instead of shuffling back and forth on stage, which took a long time. Considering the original printed text not successful, following the clearly superior television piece, Beckett sought with [the director Pierre] Chabert to find a stage equivalent. While Beckett was convinced it could not be done, Chabert proposed to accomplish the appearance/disappearance of the characters with lighting. Beckett agreed to go along with it.”The six performances took place at the Théâtre du Rond-Point
Théâtre du Rond-Point
Théâtre du Rond-Point is a theatre in Paris, located at 2bis avenue Franklin-D.-Roosevelt, 8th arrondissement.-History:The theatre began with an 1838 project of architect Jacques Ignace Hittorff for a rotunda in the Champs Elysees. Inaugurated in 1839, this structure was integrated with other...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and featured David Warrilow as Bam. The revised text (known as What Where II) did away with the opening mime, Bam’s interventions and the characters were again represented only as floating heads. “Je recommence” (I start again) was amended to “Ici Bam” (Here is Bam). “Because of technical difficulties, the French stage production replaced the enlarged and distorted reflection of Bam’s face with a halo
Halo (optical phenomenon)
A halo from Greek ἅλως; also known as a nimbus, icebow or gloriole) is an optical phenomenon produced by ice crystals creating colored or white arcs and spots in the sky. Many are near the sun or moon but others are elsewhere and even in the opposite part of the sky...
, a ring of diffuse orange light. Chabert’s production note is as follows: ‘rond lumineux = source de Voix,’” Additionally, “[i]n place of the cowl
Cowl
This article is about the garment used by monks and nuns. For other uses, see Cowl or Cowling .The cowl is an item of clothing consisting of a long, hooded garment with wide sleeves. Originally it may have referred simply to the hooded portion of a cloak...
-covered heads that created the impression of floating faces, Beckett substituted shaved skulls. The field of memory was now implicit … On the stage the players appeared unrealistically high standing on a concealed two-foot platform, their heads aligned with the pulsing light that echoed the TV tube.”
1988
In 1987 Beckett worked with Stan Gontarski and John Reilly to refine the production, filmed at the Magic Theater in San Francisco, for American television. It has been released by Global Video as Peephole Art: Beckett for Television. The four characters are portrayed by Morgan Upton, Tom Luce, Dave Peichart and Richard Wagner. Beckett had been not quite satisfied with the French stage production and re-introduced the “cowl-covered heads replacing the skulls [and also asked that] the light somehow [take] on the image of Bam (but not, he emphasised, televised).” The opening mime was also reinstated.As with the German television production the Voice of Bam was now represented as an eerily distorted face, hovering in the upper left corner of a dark screen. The Modern Word website describes it “like a living, concave mask. His voice is sepulchral and chilling, yet conveys a sad, lonely quality as well. Bam, Bom, Bim, and Bem appear as detached faces along the bottom of the screen, floating in the black void and illuminated in stark white contrast. The dialogue is delivered in brisk, metallic monotones, emphasizing the sameness of the characters and the repetitiveness of the seasonal interrogations.”
1999
Damien O’Donnell directed a filmed version of What Where for the Beckett on FilmBeckett on Film
Beckett on Film was a project aimed at making film versions of all nineteen of Samuel Beckett's stage plays, with the exception of the early and unperformed Eleutheria. This endeavour was successfully completed, with the first films being shown in 2001.The project was conceived by Michael Colgan,...
project in December 1999. It was filmed at Ardmore Studios
Ardmore Studios
Ardmore Studios is a film studio in Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland which was founded by Emmet Dalton and opened by the Minister for Industry and Commerce Seán Lemass on May 12, 1958....
in County Wicklow
County Wicklow
County Wicklow is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Mid-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Wicklow, which derives from the Old Norse name Víkingalág or Wykynlo. Wicklow County Council is the local authority for the county...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. Bam is played and voiced by Sean McGinley
Seán McGinley
Seán McGinley is an Irish film and television actor.-Early life:McGinley was born in Pettigo, County Donegal, Ireland where his father was a customs officer, and raised in nearby Ballyshannon...
. Gary Lewis
Gary Lewis (actor)
Gary Lewis is a Scottish actor. He has had parts in Billy Elliot, Gangs of New York, Eragon and Three and Out, as well as a major role in the television docudrama, Supervolcano.-Early life:...
plays all other characters and the original text and stage instructions are used including the opening mime.
O'Donnell sets the play within a claustrophobic, high-tech
High tech
High tech is technology that is at the cutting edge: the most advanced technology currently available. It is often used in reference to micro-electronics, rather than other technologies. The adjective form is hyphenated: high-tech or high-technology...
library, its tall shelves bordered by strips of fluorescent
Fluorescence
Fluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation of a different wavelength. It is a form of luminescence. In most cases, emitted light has a longer wavelength, and therefore lower energy, than the absorbed radiation...
lighting. When the Voice of Bam declares, "I switch on," the luminescent tubes stutter awake to the sound of breakers being thrown. The voice itself is dispassionate and calm; issuing from a megaphone-shaped loudspeaker
Loudspeaker
A loudspeaker is an electroacoustic transducer that produces sound in response to an electrical audio signal input. Non-electrical loudspeakers were developed as accessories to telephone systems, but electronic amplification by vacuum tube made loudspeakers more generally useful...
fixed above the central doors, it evokes HAL 9000
HAL 9000
HAL 9000 is the antagonist in Arthur C. Clarke's science fiction Space Odyssey saga. HAL is an artificial intelligence that interacts with the astronaut crew of the Discovery One spacecraft, usually represented as a red television-camera eye found throughout the ship...
from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
. The metal clanging of doors and the crisp footsteps on the metallic floor accentuate the chilly atmosphere.
O'Donnell said in interview: “[T]here is no set in the original play, but I argued that the whole play is about power
Power (sociology)
Power is a measurement of an entity's ability to control its environment, including the behavior of other entities. The term authority is often used for power perceived as legitimate by the social structure. Power can be seen as evil or unjust, but the exercise of power is accepted as endemic to...
and the abuse of power, and how information is power, so we used the library as a 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...
for somebody who has control of all the power and all the information. When it came to casting, I was looking for a particular type of actor – somebody who could bring a sort of menacing quality to the screen. There is a lot of menace in the play. What Where is about a brooding, palpable evil, which is a theme that occurs in Beckett's other work.”
Presented thus is it easy to see What Where as Beckett’s Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...
. At the end of Catastrophe there is a flicker of hope. Not so here. Just as Winston Smith
Winston Smith
Winston Smith is a fictional character and the protagonist of George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The character was employed by Orwell as an everyman in the setting of the novel, a "central eye ... [the reader] can readily identify with"...
is beaten into submission so are these characters. O’Donnell brings “the scene closer to realism
Realism (dramatic arts)
Realism was a general movement in 19th-century theatre that developed a set of dramatic and theatrical conventions with the aim of bringing a greater fidelity of real life to texts and performances....
and create[s] a dark, sinister atmosphere by homing in on the faces of the two actors … As he said, ‘Filming allows you to show a close-up
Close-up
In filmmaking, television production, still photography and the comic strip medium a close-up tightly frames a person or an object. Close-ups are one of the standard shots used regularly with medium shots and long shots . Close-ups display the most detail, but they do not include the broader scene...
of a terrified man, bringing a different edge to the work.’”
Before switching off for the last time Bam’s voice instructs the audience: “Make sense who may” but how do you make sense out of something senseless? And is any adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
used more often to describe violence? Beckett has left it up to the viewer to supply his own meaning.
Adaptations
The play has been adapted as a one-act chamber operaChamber opera
Chamber opera is a designation for operas written to be performed with a chamber ensemble rather than a full orchestra.The term and form were invented by Benjamin Britten in the 1940s, when the English Opera Group needed works that could easily be taken on tour and performed in a variety of small...
by Heinz Holliger
Heinz Holliger
Heinz Holliger Heinz Holliger Heinz Holliger (born 21 May 1939 is a Swiss oboist, composer and conductor.-Biography:He was born in Langenthal, Switzerland, and began his musical education at the conservatories of Bern and Basel. He studied composition with Sándor Veress and Pierre Boulez...
, composed in 1988 and first released on a commercial recording in 1997.