Then (drama)

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Lao-Tzu who inspired Beckett's listeners

At that time (English original title: That Time ) is a one-act play by Samuel Beckett . Beckett the piece in 1975 had especially for the friend of his actor Patrick Magee written, then the silent role of the one-man piece took that on May 20, 1976 - along with kicking (Foot Falls) - at the Royal Court Theater in London in celebration of Beckett 70th birthday was premiered. Directed by Donald McWhinnie, with the assistance of the author.

action

In the only cone of light in the otherwise dark scene, the face of an old man hovers about three meters above the stage floor. His white hair is spread out like someone lying horizontally and forms a glowing wreath around his head. His regular breathing is amplified over loudspeakers. He keeps his eyes closed almost all the time. Only at the very end does his mouth twist into a "toothless smile".

The old man is “the listener” (H), whose appearance Beckett was inspired by the figure of the legendary Chinese philosopher Lao-Tse . H hears three voices alternately. As it soon becomes clear, they are facets of his own voice that reach his ear from left and right (A, B) and above (C). They merge into one another without the slightest interruption in the general flow of speech, apart from two interruptions in which the stage directions provide for seven seconds of silence. They differ acoustically only in the direction from which they speak to H and tell of H's youth (B), love (A) and age (C).
Von A conjures up images of the night and pale morning sun, among others, when he hid from adults as a small boy and talked to himself with a children's book. B tells of a platonic relationship with a girl, with whom he once sat in a cornfield on a summer's day, on another time on the beach, and of how he heard an owl screaming alone in a dark room at night and vainly remembered the love scene tried to call back. C describes the winter and rain, from which he finds refuge in public buildings such as the post office or the museum. When he finally ends up in a library, he suddenly imagines seeing all the books crumble to dust - a vision of doom with which the monologues come to an end.
A, B and C document that H has always preferred isolation and self-reflection, that retrospectives and storytelling were his constant companions and that now, after years of studying the phenomenon of time like a cancer ("that cancer time") has suffered, it is difficult to distinguish between reality and invention.

To the form

The monologues of the three voices take place in a precisely regulated, joint-like interlaced sequence, which has given rise to many speculations and suggests the equality or synchronization of the three streams of memory. In the event that the distinction between the sources (left, right and top) of A, B and C would not be clearly perceptible by the audience, Beckett suggested technically manipulating the three voices so that they speak in slightly different pitches, which should refer to three different age groups, but not to three different speakers. For the same reason, this three-part voice should not be heard live, but rather recorded beforehand and then played back from the tape.

interpretation

Especially the unexpected smile of the listener at the end of the one-act play led to numerous interpretations. Whether it is a sign of satisfaction that H has finally found himself in the three memories, or whether it is an expression of relief in view of the end of the acoustic irrigation, or whether it is a cynical grin about the insignificance of human life in general - Beckett failed to answer. In favor of the last solution, however, is that during the German production in Berlin in September 1976, when he was directing the German listener actor Klaus Herm, instead of smiling , the author gave the German listener-actor Klaus Herm a short, scornful laugh ("a single scornful exhale-laugh" ) recommended.

Individual evidence

  1. James Knowlson: State of play: performance changes and Beckett scholarship ( Memento of September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), footnote 2
  2. Beckett's remark "smile, toothless for preference" does not suggest, as is sometimes wrongly assumed, that the listener is a "toothless" old man. Rather, what is meant here is a smile where you “can't see your teeth”.
  3. So it says in the introductory stage directions.