Repetition, as a structural device, characterises all of Beckett’s drama. In this mime, a firm structure is created through gestural repetition. Stage directions repeatedly signal that either the protagonist ‘is flung’ or ‘he falls’, and constantly ‘looks at his hands’, ‘turns aside’ and ‘sees’ and ‘goes to’ try some apparent solution but always ‘tries in vain’. After ‘he reflects’ on everything he has experienced ‘he does not move’, for he sees no hope of ever exerting any control or changing anything to better his experience of living.

The entire movement of the drama depends also on counterpointing and balancing a sequence of repetitions. At first, a series of whistles off-stage, right and left, appear to offer the player an easy escape from his predicament. He hopes are brutally dashed, repeatedly, but eventually he appears to learn not to place his trust in any unseen, external force.

A second phase begins with a variety of temptations that appear to have the potential to better his present quality of life. The insidious off-stage whistle directs attention, in turn, to a shady tree, a pair of scissors (tree shade withdrawn), a small carafe of water, cube 1, cube 2, cube 3 (cube 3 withdrawn), a rope - which is withdrawn when a section is cut to create a lasso (which results in the carafe being withdrawn) - and a bough that is lowered from the tree.

The introductory series of whistles off-stage, right and left, are then repeated. The player’s hopes of an easy escape from his predicament are again brutally dashed before he remembers not to place his trust in the unseen, external force.

The final part of the drama repeats the second phase by reversing its order, with some variation. The temptations that appeared to have the potential to better the quality of life are, in turn, withdrawn: first the scissors and lasso and cube 2 (cube 3 having been withdrawn earlier), and then cube 1, the small carafe of water and the tree (after its bough has been raised first).

This precise balancing of variable elements conveys the unseen external control exerted throughout by both ‘the whistle’ and the playwright himself. ‘It is the shape that matters,’ Beckett always insisted.