Word: roughs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...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...
...Rough for Theatre II, the most upbeat and fast-paced play of the three, also stars Langsam and Oleson. Here they don trenchcoats and nose glasses to become "assassins" pouring over documents to determine whether a man should commit suicide...
...cheery `business as usual' 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...
...under investigation (played by Stefan Korpalski) is on stage throughout the sequence, frozen with his back to the audience for the entire play. With no offense intended, Korpalski is excellent in this role. Langsam and Oleson are even more impressive in Rough II than they are in Rough I, in part because this time, the polarity of their magnetism is reversed; here they are a team...