Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Steven Connor

Critical Essay by Steven Connor

SOURCE: Connor, Steven. “‘What? Where?’ Presence and Repetition in Beckett's Theatre.” In Rethinking Beckett: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Lance St. John Butler and Robin J. Davis, pp. 1-19. New York, N.Y.: St Martin's Press, 1990.

In the following essay, Connor analyzes the voices, sounds, silences, and use of repetition in Beckett's plays. Connor contends that without being able to depend on physicality, the sounds coupled with the repetitions create a “space” for the audience's inspection.

Beckett's turn to the theatre has often been represented as the expression of a longing for an art of visibility and tangibility as a relief from the epistemological disintegrations which Beckett described in his interview with Israel Schenker in 1956—‘no “I,” no “have,” no “being.” No nominative, no accusative, no verb. There's no way to go on.’¹ Michael Robinson, for example, sees the theatre as ‘the only direction in which a development...
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