Act without words I

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Data
Title: Act without words I
Original title: Acte sans paroles I
Original language: French
Author: Samuel Beckett
Publishing year: 1956
Premiere: 1957
Place of premiere: London, Royal Court Theater
people

A human

Act without words I ( Acte sans paroles I ) is Samuel Beckett's first pantomime (followed by Act without words II ). Like many of his works, Beckett first wrote this piece in French and later translated it into English himself. Beckett wrote it in 1956 at the request of the dancer Deryk Mendel. It premiered on April 3, 1957 at the Royal Court Theater in London, where it was shown following a performance of Beckett's play Endgame . The original music for the piece was written by John S. Beckett , a cousin of the author, who later also worked with him on the radio play Words and Music .

action

The action takes place in a desert that is illuminated by "blinding light". The piece has only one male figure who is "thrown backwards onto the stage" at the beginning of the piece. Then the man hears a whistle from the right. He “thinks the sound is some kind of call, and after thinking about it a little bit, he walks that way, only to be thrown back. Then the sound can be heard from the left. The scene is repeated backwards. ”There is obviously no way out. He is sitting on the floor and looking at his hands.

Then a number of objects are lowered into the scene, first a tree with “only one branch, about a meter above the ground”, a “caricature of the tree of life ”. Its arrival - like the arrival of all other objects - is announced by the same sharp whistle. When the man noticed him, he moved into the shade of the tree and looked at his hands. “A pair of tailors' scissors sinks from the lace,” but again he doesn't notice them until he hears a whistle. He then starts cutting his fingernails.

In the course of the play, other objects are also let down from above: three cubes of different sizes, a piece of rope and - always out of his reach - a "small carafe with a large sticky label on its neck that says water ".

The rest of the piece is a study of thwarted efforts. “Equipped with two natural tools: with his mind and with his hands, the tools that distinguish him from the lower animals, he tries to survive, he tries to get some water in the desert. The mind works, at least in part: it learns: the small cube on the large cube; he invents, or he gets the inventions scissors, dice and rope. But as soon as he has learned to use his tools profitably, they are withdrawn from him: the scissors when he thinks about cutting off his neck instead of his fingernails; the dice and the rope when he discovers he could use them as a gallows. ”(At the end of Waiting for Godot , Vladimir and Estragon are also considering killing themselves this way.) Beckett is referring to the silent comedies he has seen from Buster Keaton , Ben Turpon and Harry Langdon , all of whom encounter objects that seem to have a will of their own.

After all, it looks like the man has given up. He is sitting on the big cube. After a while it is pulled away from under him and he remains on the ground. At this point he decides not to continue playing the game: even with the water carafe dangling in front of his face, he makes no effort to grab it. The tree's palm leaves open and offer shade again, but it doesn't move. He just sits there in the blinding light and looks at his hands.

interpretation

On one level, Act Without Words I appears to be "a behavioral experiment within a classical myth," within the Tantalus myth. As is well known, Tantatus stood in a pond, the water of which always receded when he bent down to drink from it. A fruit tree leaned over him, raising its branches every time he tried to grab the fruit to eat.
In the thirties Beckett read the book by Wolfgang Köhler The Mentality of Apes (German original title: "Intelligence tests on anthropoids") about the ape population on Tenerife . Experiments had been carried out there in which monkeys stacked cubes on top of each other to get to a banana. Obviously Beckett is referring to this reading with the piece.

Tantalus had not been punished for nothing. In Beckett's play, however, it is not shown that the man is actually punished for nothing other than his very existence. As with the narrator in The Outcast , whose story begins with being cast from the place where he lives into an environment "in which he neither exists nor can he escape", there is an external power here whereas in Waiting for Godot the existence of Godot remains questionable. This external power is represented by a "sharp, inhuman, disembodied whistle." It does not allow the man to leave. His fall (s) can be understood as a representation of the fall .

The fact that the man is literally thrown into his existence, at least in the eyes of the audience, is reminiscent of Heidegger's concept of thrownness . Heidegger uses this term in a metaphorical sense: it describes the accidental , fortuitous nature of human existence in a world that has not become the human world through conscious choice. Beckett's approach is just as metaphorical: the man, like the newborn from the womb, is thrown out of non-being into being, out of darkness into the glistening stage light. The performer is without a name, he could be anyone. "As Beckett told his American publisher Barney Rossett in 1957, he is only 'human flesh or bones'".

When he looks at his hands for the first time, it is “as if he were taking notice of his own body for the very first time [...] When he became aware of his existence [...] [he is ready], the presence of the various beings [Heideggers Term for existing things] to accept ”. After the scissors appear as one of the beings, the man begins to cut his fingernails, "for no other reason than that the right object is suddenly available". Of course, the scissors can stand here for any other useful object in everyday life, such as a house or car, things that are generally taken for granted.

The piece is a parable of resignation - a state that one only reaches after a series of disappointments. The man has learned 'the hard way' that there is nothing he can rely on in his life but himself. GC Barnard objects to this common interpretation of the conclusion that the man does not move does not lie the fact that it was simply broken: "The man remains defeated, he has got out of the hardship and lies on the empty desert floor." But in this obvious, traditional ending Beckett proves his perfect skills, because the actual piece begins at its end . The culminating end of the pantomime should not mean a pathetic defeat, but a conscious rebellion, the deliberate refusal of obedience by man. Lucky ( waiting for Godot ) finally rose against Pozzo. Ironically, the performer does the most when they are immobile, and their life ends up making sense. In this refusal, in this cutting of the umbilical cord, a second birth takes place, the birth of the human being. The man gave birth to himself, even if that means his death.

Film recording

Karel Reisz filmed the piece for the Beckett on Film project with music specially composed by Michael Nyman.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Samuel Beckett: Act without words I From the French by Elmar Tophoven In: Samuel Beckett: Night and dreams. Collected short pieces Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 2006, pp. 47–53
  2. ↑ a b c d Samuel Beckett: Act without words I From the French by Elmar Tophoven In: Samuel Beckett: Night and dreams. Collected short pieces Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 2006, p. 49
  3. ↑ Beckett, S., Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p. 43: "dazzling light"
  4. ↑ Beckett, S., Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett (London: Faber and Faber, 1984) ', p. 43: "flung backwards"
  5. ↑ Lamont, RC, 'To Speak the Words of "The Tribe": The Wordlessness of Samuel Beckett's Metaphysical Clowns' in Burkman, KH, (Ed.) Myth and Ritual in the Plays of Samuel Beckett (London and Toronto: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1987), p. 60: He "takes the sound for some kind of call, and after a bit of reflection, proceeds in that direction only to find himself hurled back again. Next the sound issues from the left. The scene is repeated in reverse."
  6. ↑ Beckett, p. 1984 p. 43: "a single bough some three yards from the ground"
  7. ↑ Lamont, RC, 'To Speak the Words of “The Tribe”: The Wordlessness of Samuel Beckett's Metaphysical Clowns' in Burkman, KH, (Ed.) Myth and Ritual in the Plays of Samuel Beckett (London and Toronto: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1987) p. 60: "a caricature of the Tree of Life."
  8. ↑ Beckett, p. 1984 p. 43: “A pair of tailor's scissors descends from the flies”
  9. ↑ Samuel Beckett: Act without words I From the French by Elmar Tophoven In: Samuel Beckett: Night and dreams. Collected short pieces Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 2006, p. 50
  10. ↑ Beckett, S., Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p. 44: "tiny carafe, to which is attached a huge label inscribed WATER."
  11. ^ Gontarski, SE, 'Birth Astride a Grave: Samuel Beckett's Act Without Words I ' in The Beckett Studies Reader (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1993), pp 29-34: “Armed with two natural tools, mind and hands, those tools, which separate him from lower orders of animals, he tries to survive, to secure some water in the desert. The mind works, at least in part: he learns - small cube on large; he invents, or is given inventions - scissors, cubes, rope. But when he learns to use his tools effectively, they are confiscated: the scissors, when he reasons that in addition to cutting his fingernails, he might cut his throat; the blocks and rope, when he discovers that they might make a gallows. "
  12. ↑ Ackerley, CJ and Gontarski, SE, (Eds.) The Faber Companion to Samuel Beckett , (London: Faber and Faber, 2006), p. 3: [ Act Without Words I ] "seems a behaviorist experiment within a classical myth"
  13. ^ Knowlson, J., Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett (London: Bloomsbury, 1996), p. 419
  14. ↑ Beckett, S., The Expelled and Other Novellas (London: Penguin Books, 1980)
  15. ↑ Ackerley, CJ and Gontarski, SE, (Eds.) The Faber Companion to Samuel Beckett , (London: Faber and Faber, 2006), pp. 3.4
  16. ↑ Lamont, RC, 'To Speak the Words of "The Tribe": The Wordlessness of Samuel Beckett's Metaphysical Clowns' in Burkman, KH, (Ed.) Myth and Ritual in the Plays of Samuel Beckett (London and Toronto: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1987), p 60: "represented by a sharp, inhuman, disembodied whistle"
  17. ↑ Oppenheim, L., 'Anonymity and Individuation: The Interrelation of Two Linguistic Functions in Not I and Rockaby ' in Davis, RJ and Butler, L. St J., (Eds.) 'Make Sense Who May': Essays on Samuel Beckett's Later Works (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1988) ', p. 42
  18. ↑ Ackerley, CJ and Gontarski, SE, (Eds.) The Faber Companion to Samuel Beckett , (London: Faber and Faber, 2006), p. 4: "As Beckett told Barney Rossett, his longtime US publisher, in 1957: he is just 'human meat or bones.'"
  19. ↑ Lamont, RC, 'To Speak the Words of "The Tribe": The Wordlessness of Samuel Beckett's Metaphysical Clowns' in Burkman, KH, (Ed.) Myth and Ritual in the Plays of Samuel Beckett (London and Toronto: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1987) ', p. 60: "as though [he is] noticing his own body for the first time ... Having become cognizant of his Dasein ... [he is willing to] accept the presence of various beings"
  20. ↑ Lamont, RC, 'To Speak the Words of "The Tribe": The Wordlessness of Samuel Beckett's Metaphysical Clowns' in Burkman, KH, (Ed.) Myth and Ritual in the Plays of Samuel Beckett (London and Toronto: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1987), p. 60: "for no other reason than the sudden availability of the correct object. The scissors of course could stand for any other useful object of daily living such as a house or car, objects whose thereness is most often taken for granted. "
  21. ^ Barnard, GC, Samuel Beckett: A New Approach , (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1970), p. 109: 'the man remains, defeated, having opted out of the struggle, lying on the empty desert.'
  22. ^ Gontarski, SE, 'Birth Astride a Grave: Samuel Beckett's Act Without Words I ' in The Beckett Studies Reader (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1993), pp 29-34: “But within this obvious, traditional ending, Beckett works His consummate skill, for the real play begins with its terminus. The climactic ending of the mime may signify not a pathetic defeat, but a conscious rebellion, man's deliberate refusal to obey. Lucky has finally turned on Pozzo. Ironically then, the protagonist is most active when inert, and his life acquires meaning at its end. In this refusal, this cutting of the umbilical rope, a second birth occurs, the birth of Man. "
  23. ^ A Piece of Monologue in Beckett, S., Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p. 265: "Birth was the death of him."

Web links