Word: beckett
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...staged plays by Samuel Beckett, Pirandello, Genet and Robert Wilson. It has also premiered plays by younger dramatists, such as Christopher Durang and Don DeLillo...
Rough for Theatre I etches out the unexpected meeting of a blind beggar and a wheelchair-bound cripple. While many of Beckett's plays are about "endings" that can't happen, Rough I is about an impossible beginning. After exchanging anecdotes about the miserableness of their lives, the two principal characters realize that they might be able to live together and derive solace from each other's company as each has something that the other lacks. But the pride of the cripple (played by Eric Oleson) and the dreamy quality of beggar (Harold Langsam) render this plan unworkable...
...SECOND PLAY of the set, Footfalls, is of a completely different nature than Rough I. The set is minimalist, and the lighting harsh, low, and unidirectional. In Footfalls, Beckett explores the absurdity of the human situation through a dialogue between a daughter and mother. The problem--if it really is a problem--with Footfalls is that it is impossible to determine who is the mother and who is the daughter. The play thus becomes very impressionistic, with no evidence of a climax or resolution--but then again, this is Beckett's fundamental opinion about life...
...nature of the bantering between Langsam and Oleson as they sort through the evidence is at odds with the fundamental morbidity of the subject. The beauty of Rough II is that we become attached with the assassins as they are in the process of deciding the man's fate. Beckett wants us to realize that this is precisely what happens in the endless tedium that constitutes most of our existences. When you're busy, you haven't got time to think about being miserable...
Despite the sullen tone of the three plays, they must, upon reflection, be seen as optimistic. Beckett shows that even in a world that is nihilistic, man cannot bring himself to be a true nihilist. In Rough I, the cripple asks the beggar why he doesn't just do himself in. The beggar replies, "I'm unhappy, but I'm not unhappy enough...