Kicks

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Tritte (English original title: Footfalls ) is a short play by Samuel Beckett . The premiere took place - along with the one-act play that time (That time) - May 20, 1976 celebration of Beckett's 70th birthday in the Royal Court Theater , London, instead. The German premiere was on October 1, 1976 in the workshop of the Schillertheater , Berlin. In Berlin Beckett staged both pieces himself. In London, on the other hand, he had only taken over the production of Footfalls ; That time was directed by Donald McWhinnie, with the mere assistant of the writer.

action

Two old women live under one roof: The ninety-year-old mother is sick and destitute, her daughter May, referred to as M for short, apparently no longer has any contact with the outside world. The daughter's constant steps are accompanied by the same question from the mother, who crouches somewhere in the dark background and only plays along as a voice: “Will you never stop tossing it all back and forth? It all. In your poor head It all. It all. ”
The mother has no answer. The daughter thinks she is alone. “I need to hear the footsteps,” she says. “I'm going here now. Break . Rather, I come and stop. Break . When night falls. ”From both mouths, interrupted again and again by pauses and silence, strange stories about a woman Winter and her daughter Amy, who from one day to the next were no longer responsive and only mindless bodies. The two seem to resemble May and her mother, especially since the anagrammatic relationship of the names (May / Amy) suggests this. Something far back fatefully binds M and her mother to one another, inevitably and never ending it remains their shared story.

shape

The piece consists of four sections, which (as is so often the case in Beckett's dramas) are each introduced with a ring. At the same time, the spotlight is faded in, in which M moves as if in a bright corridor. With each section, the bell and light diminish. And also the small spot that is aimed at May's face as soon as she stops, is dimmed down from time to time.
As someone who grew up with music and attaches immense importance to it, Beckett made a point of making it clear that the piece has a rhythmic and musical structure: “The walking should be like a metronome, one length must be measured in exactly nine seconds. ”( The gait should be like that of a metronome, each pendulum phase must last exactly nine seconds. ) So that the rhythm of these steps could be clearly heard by the audience, May actress Billie Whitelaw from London had to put sandpaper on the soles of her wear soft ballet shoes. And Beckett said to the German leading actress Hildegard Schmahl : “These life-long stretches of walking. That is the center of the play, everything else is secondary. ”( This lifelong stepping up and down forms the focus of the piece; everything else is of secondary importance. )

interpretation

Mechanically like a metronome , M goes from wall to wall and paces the limited horizon of her existence like in a dark prison cell. Both the back and forth of their exact, constant movement and their ageless appearance symbolize not only the idleness of their life and the on-the-spot-stepping of their consciousness, but also the meticulous pendulum of monotonously passing time, which seems to stand still and yet never comes to a standstill. Cold, isolation and loneliness determine this Beckettian endgame, reduced by a few additional degrees . Like a constantly shivering ghost , May walks up and down with his arms wrapped around her. It seems to be just a shadow of itself and no longer of this world. And her mother, too, who sits invisibly in the dark somewhere, may already be dead and probably only exists in her daughter's imagination.

Text output

  • Samuel Beckett: Back then and Kicks . In: Theater heute , Volume 11 (1976)
  • Samuel Beckett: Kicks . Frankfurt a. M .: Suhrkamp, ​​1976.

Individual evidence

  1. a b c cf. Walter D. Asmus: Practical aspects of theater, radio and television. Rehearsal notes for the German premiere of Beckett's "That Time" and "Footfalls" at the Schiller-Theater Werkstatt , Berlin, (1.9.76) Journal of Beckett Studies , No 2, Summer 1977, fsu.edu ( Memento des Originals vom 13 April 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.english.fsu.edu
  2. James Knowlson: State of play: performance changes and Beckett scholarship ( Memento of the original of September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.english.fsu.edu archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Footnote 1 & 2
  3. ^ Sean Doran: Why music struck a chord with Beckett . In: The Guardian . July 31, 2014, ISSN  0261-3077 ( theguardian.com [accessed November 28, 2017]).