Play

Background

The text of Play calls for a placeless playing area, an empty space save for three identical grey funereal urns centre-front, touching each other. Nothing moves, except three faces. These are 'just discernible' in the 'almost complete darkness'. The darkness is alleviated only by a faint, cold white light projected on to the face protruding from each urn, faces so trapped and 'so lost to age and aspect as to seem almost part of the urns'. In this minimalist and surreal setting, place holds no significance.

Rhythm, tone, mood and meaning are affected by the dramatic physical changes wrought by sudden switchings of inquisitorial light in the text (or by the camera in the Beckett on Film production). In the end, the light/camera that forces the characters into the pains of consciousness is replaced by a darkness that is both craved and feared:

W1: Dying for dark – and the darker the worse. Strange.