Book review: A play by Samuel Beckett (Faber).

Play is a one-act play by Samuel Beckett. It was written between 1962 and 1963 and first produced in German as Spiel on 14 June 1963 at the Ulmer Theatre in Ulm-Donau, Germany, directed by Deryk Mendel, with Nancy Illig (W1), Sigfrid Pfeiffer (W2), and Gerhard Winter (M). The first performance in English was on 7 April 1964 at the Old Vic in London. It was not well-received upon its British premiere.

"It is totally fascinating and satisfying because, in its smaller scale, its polyphonic dialogue uses much the same astonishing intervals of resonance and echo and discovery as Godot; and because it shows Beckett at his most carelessly masterful, using comedy to scour the tragic, to put flesh upon our lies, and to give the lie to our flesh." Anne Duchene in The Guardian.

My review

This short one-act play is indeed a masterpiece. Everything is said, felt, understood at its deepest level thanks to this cacophony, these refracted messages, and kaleidoscopic "dialogues".  

W2:

"No doubt I make the same mistake as when it was the sun that shone, of looking for sense where possibly there is none." 

It is hard to call them exchanges or dialogues as the actors keep talking, expressing their feelings, their anger, their frustration, without really listening to the other protagonists... The three bodies in urns allow us to see only faces, only part of these people, seemingly having lost part of their souls. An extremely powerful play using nonsense humour at times (when M wonders about tea for instance... 

M :

"Personally I always preferred Lipton's." 

... while W1 is wondering about the meaning of life... 

W1 :

"And that all is falling, all fallen, from the beginning, on empty air. Nothing being asked at all. No one asking me for anything at all." 

Could that be an instance of bathos?  I wonder!  Or is it from the ridiculous to the sublime?

A sublime work, at any rate!

Pour aller plus loin

In the Guardian