Experiments to test the human attention span
As evidenced by Waiting for Godot, Beckett is known for scorning convention and pushing the envelope of what theatrical drama could be. Beckett explores existential ideas through minimalist imagery and absurdist humor. In his works, he rethinks the art form of the theater, stripping sets and costumes down to the bare essentials and writing dialogue and actions with little or no coherent linear narrative. Several of the works in this volume are not so much plays but rather choreography for pantomime, calling to mind the kinds of “happenings” that John Cage and Robert Rauschenberg used to put together in the 1960s. Many of the works included here were written for radio and television rather than the stage, and even his stage productions sometimes include an evocation of radio in the use of recorded voices. Apparently Beckett was such a big name that anything he wrote, no matter how dark, stark, or bizarre, would be broadcast by the BBC or some TV or radio studio in France or Germany. Some of these pieces are so off-puttingly dull or nonsensical, however, that you’ve got to wonder who would actually sit by their radio and listen to this stuff.
Beckett’s works weren’t so much written to be enjoyed, however, but rather to be admired for their thought-provoking innovation. Reading through these works, one certainly does develop an admiration for his creativity and his audacity, even though many of these works feel like failed experiments. Although it is often difficult to read these texts because of the constant “. . .”s and “[Pause]”s, one can imagine the effect of sitting in a theater and experiencing these works in person. The visual aspects of Beckett’s staging, lighting, and costuming are often quite interesting (although of course that doesn’t apply to the radio works). There is a also a certain pleasure derived from the somewhat mathematical beauty of the movements described. What is hard to stand, however, is the human speech in Beckett’s plays (you can’t even call it dialogue) which is often one lone figure reciting a monologue of sentence fragments that don’t add up to much of anything. Another recurring element is a sort of godlike narrator, often unseen, who barks out instructions that the human figures act out, like an avant-garde session of Simon Says.
Beckett’s works are challenging. That’s the reason he is so admired. Only Beckett could get away with a play called “Play” and a film called “Film.” Of course, most people who pick up this volume are going to know that ahead of time and expect a certain level of discomfort and tedium to these proceedings. The Collected Shorter Plays is often not a pleasurable read, but it does give the reader a broad understanding of what Beckett was about and how he irrevocably transformed the art of the theater. These writings were quite groundbreaking for their time, and even now their modernist aesthetic comes across as more intelligent and fascinating than much of what’s considered groundbreaking nowadays.
Works in this collection
All That Fall
Act Without Words I
Act Without Words II
Krapp’s Last Tape
Rough for Theatre I
Rough for Theatre II
Embers
Rough for Radio I
Rough for Radio II
Words and Music
Cascando
Play
Film
The Old Tune
Come and Go
Eh Joe
Breath
Not I
That Time
Footfalls
Ghost Trio
. . . but the clouds . . .
A Piece of Monologue
Rockaby
Ohio Impromptu
Quad
Catastrophe
Nacht und Träume
What Where
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Works in this collection
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