The Theatre of Samuel Beckett

1. The Theatre of Samuel Beckett

2. Dr. Fernando de Toro e-mail: fernando.detoro@umanitoba.ca Lectures: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/-fdetoro/UFA-Beckett-Theatre

3. Introduction • In order to make some sense of Beckett’s theatre, in my estimation, we can, at best, attempt to capture the textual strategy. • In order to do this, I propose to examine Beckett’s texts from three different avenues: • a) The performance of language • b) The Subject and the Other • c) The textual rhizomaticity.

4. Performance in Beckett’s works does not consist on a story or a character that are place on the stage, but language. • All these texts share a common form where language is staged: • All the linguistic supports are obliterated; words have an elliptical function and are characterised by marked iterativity, that targets the cancelation of meaning and the establishment of silence. • Said in other words, it is about the rejection of communication between the Subject and the Object what necessarily leads to a writing of failure which semiotises the inexpressible character of the Subject.

5. The Texts: Beckett, Samuel. (1984). Collected Short Plays. New York: Grove Press. • The texts we will examine are: • Not I, written in English in 1972 and translated into French in 1974; • That Time, written in English in 1974 and translated into French in 1975);

6. Breath, written in English in 1969 and translated into French in 1972. • These are five examples of texts which constitute the performative act of a voice independent of all referentiality.

7. A Piece of a Monologue, written in English in 1979 and translated into French in 1982. • Breath, written in English in 1969 and translated into French in 1972. • These are three examples of texts which constitute the performative act of a voice independent of all referentiality.

8. a) The performance of language • Not I • The enunciative situation and the performance of language is similar in Not I. While in Play, three inexpressive heads, here we face a mouth isolated of specification. • This time there not even a head, only the isolated mouth without context. Once more, there is only an amazing sonority shrouded by darkness. • Stage in darkness but for MOUTH, upstage audience right, about 8 feet above stage level, faintly lit from close-up and below, rest of face in shadow. Invisible microphone. • […]

9. AUDITOR, downstage audience left, tall standing figure, sex undeterminable, enveloped from head to foot in loose black djellaba, with Hood, fully faintly lit, standing on invisible podium about 4 feet high shown by attitude alone to be facing diagonally across stage intent on MOUTH, still throughout but for four brief movements where indicted. (1984: 216) • Once again, there no characters, simply a mouth who is looked at by the Auditor and by the audience. • We perceive lips which uttered but we are unable to understand the uttered, not only due to the speed of the rendering, but also because Beckett obliterates any possibility of meaning, using similar devices to those observed in Play.

10. A constant iterativity of segments, with variants. The iterativity is auto-textual and it creates variants by multiple lines of flight. Here some examples: • […] for she could still hear the buzzing […] (1984: 217) • […] what?.. the buzzing? yes… all the time the buzzing… so called… in the ears... though of course actually... not in the ears at all... in the skull... dull roar in the skull... [...]. (218) • [. ..] what?.. the buzzing?.. yes… all silent but for the buzzing... so-called... no part of her moving ... that.... [...]. (218)

11. The ‘buzzing’ refers to the pure sonority of language, that is to say, that that language is reduced to a noise since that not carry any signification. • This devise is present in all of Beckett’s works. • The mouth does not inscribe itself in any context, and its discourse, most of the time, is incomprehensible, even when there are diegetic fragments. • […] • what?.. the buzzing?... yes… all dead still but for the buzzing… when suddenly she realized… words were-... what?.. who?.. no!.. she!.. [...]. (219)

12. […] • […] what?.. the buzzing?... yes… all the time the buzzing... so-called... [...]. (220) • […] • […] what?.. the buzzing?.. yes… all the time the buzzing... dull roar like falls... [...]. (220) • […] • […] what?.. the buzzing?.. yes…all the time the buzzing... dull roar... [...] (220) • […] • […] what?.. the buzzing? Yes all the time the buzzing... dull roar like falls... [...] (222)

13. On the one hand, the passages are performative in so far that they show that in this language there is no meaning: • it is the pure materiality of the signifier deprived of its signified. • Iterativity sends us to an internal referent, but this is an empty one. • On the other hand, iterativity secures the emergence of referential meaning that could exist in diegetic fragments. • In so far the fragments are repeated they produce a referential effect that constitute a diegetic simulation: an old woman who speaks of lack of love in her family.

14. Nevertheless, these fragments have no relationship to the central problematic presented by the text: • the aporia of being the Subject of the utterance, as is the case in all Beckett’s “dramatic” texts. • Finally, who speaks? Who is she? What is her relationship with MOUTH? This cannot be elucidated from a hermeneutic perspective since there is nothing to interpret. • There are many other iterations in the text which lead to bloc meaning: here some examples:

15. [...] gradually she felt ... her lips moving ... imagine!.. her lips moving!.. as of course till then she had not ... and not alone the lips ... the cheeks ... the jaws ... the whole face ... all those- ... what?.. the tongue?.. yes ... the tongue in the mouth [...]. (219) • [...]all that together … imagine !..whole body like gone … just the mouth … lips … cheeks … jaws …never … what ?.. tongue ? (220) • [...] • God is love … she’ll be purged ... back in the field ... morning ... sun ... April ... sink face down in the grass .... nothing but the larks [...]. (221) • [...] God is love … tender mercies … new every morning … back in the field …. April morning ... face in the grass ... nothing but the larks [...]. (222)

16. [...] • [...] what ? … not that ?.. nothing to do with that? Nothing she could tell?.. all right ... nothing she could tell […]. (222) • [...] • what? not that either ? .. nothing to do with that either?.. nothing she could think?.. all right … nothing she could tell … nothing she could think [...]. (222) • [...] • [...] what ?.. who ?.. no !.. she ! […]. (222) • [...] • [...] what ?.. who?.. no!.. she!.. SHE! [...]. (222)

17. We also find a constant iterativity in closed sentences such as “God and love”. • […] • […] what?.. the buzzing?.. yes…all the time the buzzing... dull roar... [...] (220) • […] […] what?.. the buzzing? Yes all the time the buzzing... dull roar like falls... [...] (222) • On the one hand, the passages are performative in so far that it show that in this language there is no meaning: • it is the pure materiality of the signifier deprived of its signified. • Iterativity sends us to an internal referent, but this is an empty one.

18. Iterativity sends us to an internal referent, but this is an empty one. • On the other hand, iterativity secures the emergence of referential meaning that could exist in diegetic fragments. • In so far the fragments are repeated they produce a referential effect that constitute a diegetic simulation: • an old woman who speaks of lack of love in her family. • Nevertheless, these fragments have no relationship to the central problematic presented by the text:

19. the aporia of being the Subject of the utterance, as is the case in all Beckett’s “dramatic” texts. • Finally, who speaks? Who is she? • What is her relationship with MOUTH? This cannot be elucidated from a hermeneutic perspective since there is nothing to interpret.

20. That Time • That time spatialises language by a face that hangs facing the audience: • Curtain. Stage in darkness. Fade up to LISTENER’S FACE about 10 feet above stage level midstage off centre. • Voices A, B, C, are his own coming to him from both sides and above. They modulate back and forth without any break in general flow except where silence indicated. See note. Silence 7 seconds LISTERNER’S EYES are open. His breath audible, slow and regular. (1984: 228)

21. The words performed are the words of the Listener, but at the same time, it is not: the words have the sonority of the Listener, but it are not performed in an act of enunciation: • they are performed by other voices, by three voices which mark the displacement from one to the other. • As in Not I and Play, here the face it is also isolated by a spot light that fixes it. • This face never enunciates a single word: it is language which speaks by itself. • Thus, the “character” not only is reduced to a face (which only produce some gestures and three breaths), but he is not the Subject of enunciation: his totally deprived of language.

22. There are two additional central devices operating in the text: on the one hand, the iterativity which is characteristic to Beckett’s writing, and on the other, the non referential language, that is, words that say something - we recognise the words – but they do not produce meaning since we ignore their referent. • The text’s iterativity is explosive, and it si not there to clarify meaning, but rather to inscribe the non sense: • A: that time you went back that last time to look was the ruin still there where you hid as a child [...] (1984: 228). • […]

23. A: that time you went back that last time to look was the ruin still there where you hid as a child [...] (1984: 228). • […] • […] just the one night in any case off the ferry one morning and back on her the next to look was the ruin still where none ever came where you hid as a child (229). • […] or that time alone on your back in the sand and no vows to break the pace when was that an earlier time after time before she came after she went or both before she came after she was gone and you back in the old scene [....] (233) • […] • […] and the lot of the child’s ruin you came to look was it still there to hide in again till it was night and time to go till that time came [...] (234).

24. The complexity of Beckett’s iterativity is almost impossible to capture since we face, I would dare to state, a sort of mathematic sequencialisation. • In this text not only find iterations with variations of one and the same isotopy (which I would define as empty), as we can see in this citation, but this mechanism is also repeated within the fragment of the utterance in the following sections:

25. C: never the same after that never quite the same but that was nothing new if it wasn’t this it was that common occurrence something you could never be the same after crawling about year after year sunk in your life long mess muttering to yourself who else you’ll never be the same after this you were never the same after that (230). • […] • B: the glider passing over never any change same blue skies nothing ever changed but she with you there or not on your right hand always the right hand on the fringe of the field and every now and then in the great peace like a whisper so faint she loved you hard to believe you even you made up that bit till the time came in the end. (234)

26. The iterations never the same and before/after are deployed on the surface of the text as empty and nomadic isotopies where language, reflected in itself, inscribe a tautological performativity, and yes, Beckett’s iterativity is alwaystautological: it is precisely the tautology that obliterates meaning. • That time generates a tautology that is deployed throughout the text:you/came/back/ruins/she. • But this isotopy does not lead to capture the referential context. • A number of questions may be asked here: first of all, who speaks?

27. We no that the face does not speak, but its voice is tripled by three recordings); the sonority of its voice, that is, of the Subject of the utterance it is not it, but the Subject which posses its voice (the recordings). • Who is then the Subject of the utterance? • Who is “you”? • What are the ruins? • Why the “the child hides”? • Who is “she”? • There are no answers for these questions.

28. b) The Subject and the Other • As it is well-known, different pohilosophers (Heidegger and Wittgenstein), psychoalanists (Lacan) and literary and cultural theoreticians (Barthes and Foucault), have dealt with the Subject/Other problematics with respect to language.

29. However, the question that surfaces is how to define with precision this problematic of the Subject? • Regarding Beckett we can state that the Subject does not exist outside language and that the empirical Subject never speaks but the Subject of language. • This is the central problematic of Beckett’s writing. In fact, this is the reflexion that Roland Barthes makes when he states that, • [...] Writing is the destruction is the destruction of every voice, of every point of origin.

30. Writing is that neutral, composite, oblique space where our subject slips away, the negative where all identity is lost, starting with the very identity of the body writing (1989: 185). • […] • […] the voice loses its origin, the author enters into his own death, writing begins (185) • […] • […] For him, for us too, it is language which speaks, not the author […] (186) • That is, writing precedes the empirical Subject and this does not wield any control regarding the words if its enunciation (utterance) enunciation and énoncé are placed at the level of language as its only Subject.

31. The meaning of words does not belong to the empirical Subject, but to the Subject of language, and the latter only attempts to constitute itself in the intention to express itself, without ever succeeding. • This notion that language is in itself, it also stated by Heidegger as a fundamental problematic of the Subject: • But language is a monologue. This now says two things: it is language alone which speaks authentically; and, language speaks lonesomly Yet only he can be lonesome who is not alone, if “not alone” means non apart, singular, without any rapports (1971[1959]: 154).

32. The texts by Barthes and Heidegger clearly establish that language is the Subject of enunciation, that language who speaks for the empirical Subject, and provides it with a voice. • Thus, language has as its only objective to represent itself, and at the most, pretends to simulate a representation. • Beckett as Barthes and Heidegger expose this simulation: we attend, then, to the end of pretention of simulation since this language/writing speaks to itself. • We face here a double aporia: on the one hand, the relationships between the empirical Subject and the Other and, on the other hand, a fundamental reversion:

33. The true Subject, according to Lacan, is the Other (language), and that who thinks to be the Subject cannot speak but through the Other, and it is this Other who speaks to the empirical Subject who attempts to be the true Subject. • Lacan’s reflexion is, without any doubt, pertinent to understand Beckett’s writing and its pragmatics vis-à-vis the aporistic empirical Subject which struggles between to speak and not to speak. • Beckett introduces a new subjectivity: not to be able to speak, and at the same time the consciousness of not arriving to speak generates the emergence of language of silence where empty words of signification are enunciated, reducing itself to the necessity of attempting to speak itself.

34. Thus, the empirical Subject finds itself in a permanent and continuous displacement and fragmentation which lead to its own destruction. • Here we face an empirical Subject empty of signification, which deconstruct the classical notion of Subject as endowed with signification. • This Subject only offers a pure signifier: its sonority materiality with a total absence of meaning. • The tragedy of Beckett’ Subject resides on the fact that is totally conscious of its split into the Other, and the its only possible manifestation is to say itself is not to say anything: obliterate language by silencing meaning.

35. This is precisely what Heidegger, again reminds us of: • To say and to speak are not identical. A man may speak, speak endlessly, and all the time say nothing. Another man may remain silent, not speak at all and yet, without speaking, say a great deal (1977: 122) • It impossible not to note the relationship between Heidegger’s text and the aporia inscribed in Beckett’s writing. Beckett introduces the ‘rebounding’ of the sonority of the Subject who speaks but it does not say anything.

36. For instance, in Play there is not a real dialogue between the heads (whose bodies are buried in large urns), but rather is a dialogue of the deaf, where instead of being directed to another head, is send to the space, and in an oblique manner, to the spectators who, in effect, cannot understand anything: the audience is reduced to listen a speech without a receiver. • Each head appropriates the language of the other, one does not belong to it, and on which cannot exert any control, and this is why the text is repeated in its entirety a second time with the goal to capture a signified always deferred, even when iterative variations are introduced. In effect, the duplication underscores, symbolically and in practice, an infinite iterativity.

37. The re-duplication of the utterances it is the failed attempt, always defeated, of the becoming of the Subject (the heads) of the utterance in order to vacate language as the only Subject. • The very fact that the heads have no names shows that the words do not belong to them. • Thus, the Subject of language who speaks dissolves any possibility of identity. • Here we can observe what Heidegger calls language’s monologue, and what explains the impossibility of any dialogic situation, and the only possibility that subsists is the monologue with a heterogloticfunction where the ‘heads’ appropriate the words of the Other.

38. Not I • it is a failure. The first question that arises is who is she? Who is that SHE that appears a dozen times in the text?:

39. […] very foolish really but so like her … in way that she might do well to ... groan... on and off ... writhe she could not ... as if in actual agony ... but could not ... could not bring herself ... some flaw in her make-up [...]. (1984: 218) • […] • […] she fixing with her eye ... a distant bell ... as she hastened towards it ... fixing it with her eye ... lest it elude her ... hand not all gone out [...]. (218) • There takes place a splitting of the Subject since she cannot speak through the Subject of language, attempting to say that she is conscious of the fact that SHE will never arrive to say herself.

40. Her voice is deployed on the surface of the failed signifier, in the words that do not arrive to capture her expression. She searches herself in the words, but what happens is that words devoured her. • SHE is the Other: she obliterates herself in the very act of saying herself. SHE is inscribed in the aporia of saying and not saying; she does not recognise her own voice stolen by the Subject of language:

41. […] when suddenly she realized ... words were— ... what?.. who?.. no! .. she!.. [Pause and movement 2.] ... realized words were coming ... imagine! .. words were coming a voice she did not recognize ... at first so long since it had sounded ... then finally had to admit ... could be none other ... than her own ... certain vowel sounds she had never heard ... elsewhere. (219) • […] and now this stream ... steady stream she who had never ... on the contrary ... practically speechless […]. 219 • […]

42. […] and no this stream ... not catching the half of it ... not the quarter ... no idea ... what she was saying! ... till she began trying to ... delude herself ... it was no hers at all... not her voice at all ... not her voice at all ... and no doubt would have ... vital she should ... was on the point ... after long efforts ... when suddenly she felt ... • gradually she felt ... her lips moving imagine! .. her lips moving! .. as of course till then she had not ... and not alone the lips ... the cheeks ... the jaws ... the whole face ... all those— ... what?. . the tongue?.. yes ... the tongue in the mouth ... all those contortions without which ... no speech possible ... and yet in the ordinary way ... not felt-at all ... so intent one is ... on what one is saying ... the whole being ... hanging on its words ... so that not only she had ... had she not only had she ... to give up ... admit hers alone ... her voice alone ... but this other awful thought ... oh long after ... sudden flash ... even

43. more awful if possible ... that feeling was coming back ... imagine! feeling coming spared that ... the mouth alone ... so far ... ha! .. so far ... then thinking ... oh long after ... sudden flash ... it can't go on ... all this ... all … steady stream ... straining to hear ... make some­thing of it ... and her own thoughts ... make something of them ... all— ... what? .. the buzzing?.. yes ... all the time the buzzing ... so-called ... all that together ... imagine! .. whole body like gone ... just the mouth ... lips ... cheeks jaws ... never—... what? .. tongue?.. yes ... lips ... cheeks … jaws ... tongue ... never still a second ... mouth on fire

44. ... stream of words ... in her ear ... practically in her ear ... not catching the half ... not the quarter ... no idea what she's saying ... imagine! .. no idea what she's saying! .. and can't stop ... no stopping it ... she who but a moment before ... but a moment! .. could not make a sound ... no sound of any kind ... now can't stop ... imagine! .. can't stop the stream ... and the whole brain begging ... something begging in the brain ... begging the mouth to stop ... pause a moment ... if only for a moment ... and no response ... as if it hadn't heard … or couldn't ... couldn't pause a second ... like maddened all that together ... straining to hear ... piece it together … and the brain ... raving away on its own ... trying to make sense of it ... or make it stop […]. (220)

45. […] • […] straining … to hear ... the odd word ... make some sense of it … whole body like gone ... just the mouth ... like maddened… and can't stop ... no stopping it ... something she- … something she had to— ... what? .. who? .. no! .. she! . . Pause and movement 3.1 . . . something she had to— … what?.. […]. (221)

46. […] pick it up there ... get on with it from there ... another few— ... what?.. not that? .. nothing to do with that?. . nothing she could tell?.. all right ... nothing she could tell… try something else ... think of something else ... oh long after ... sudden flash ... not that either ... all right something else again ... so on ... hit on it in the end …think everything keep on long enough ... then forgiven … back in the— ... what?.. not that either?.. nothing to do with that either?. . nothing she could think?. . all right nothing she could tell ... nothing she could think … nothing she— ... what?.. who?.. no! ..

47. she!.. [Pause and movement 4.] . . . tiny little thing … out before its time … godforsaken hole ... no love ... spared that ... speechless all her days ... practically speechless ... even to herself never out loud ... but not completely ... sometimes sudden urge ... once or twice a year ... always winter some strange reason ... the long evenings ... hours of darkness ... sudden urge to ... tell ... then rush out stop the first she saw ... nearest lavatory ... start pouring it out steady stream ... mad stuff ... half the vowels wrong … no one could follow ... till she saw the stare she was getting ... then die of shame ... crawl

48. back in ... once or twice a year ... always winter some strange reason ... long hours of darkness ... now this ... this ... quicker and quicker ... the words ... the brain ... flickering away like mad ... quick grab and on ... nothing there ... on some­where else ... try somewhere else ... all the time some‑ thing begging ... something in her begging … begging it all to stop ... unanswered ... prayer unanswered ... or unh too faint ... so on ... keep on ... trying ... not knowing what ... what she was trying ... what to try ... whole body like gone ... just the mouth ... like maddened […]. (220)

49. I have quoted this texts in extenso in order to highlight that Not I is a text oriented towards the problematic of the Subject and the Other. • More than eighty percent of the text is inscribed in this direction. • My reading is triggered by these passages which are present in all the pages of the text, and also the extreme iterativity which persistently re-inscribes itself in conflictive relationship between the Subject of the utterance and the Subject of the content of the utterance, which in fact becomes the Subject of the utterance of that Other that is language.

50. That Time • That Time does not escape the problematic of the Subject and the Other, but here it is presented as a split condition where the empirical Subject is uttered by three recorded voices of the Subject emanating from three different sources: • Note • Moments of one and the same voice A B C replay one another without solution of continuity-apart the two 10-second breaks. Yet the switch from one to another must be clearly faintly perceptible. If threefold source and context prove insufficient to reproduce the effect it should be assisted mechanically (e.g. threefold pitch). (1984: 227)