‘All mankind is us, whether we like it or not.’

– Waiting for Godot

For What Where, Beckett required ‘Players as alike as possible’, the suggestion of their similarity being enhanced by their ‘dimly lit’ theatrical arena. The four characters – Bam, Bom, Bim, Bem – are identical in appearance and experience. They are dressed in similar long grey gowns and each has the same long grey hair. In effect, they are identical too in name; monosyllabic names that connote no individual significance; barely mentioned in performance beyond announcements of their entrances and exits. Nothing differentiates their common moribund human condition.

The Voice (of Bam) voices a universal concern that emanates from the core of mankind’s being, as mysteriously dark as the dark core of its dimly lit megaphone. The Voice that articulates man’s dilemma is in ever-present control. Each man in succession, like successive generations of mankind, is summoned into visible existence, mercilessly manipulated and tortured before being finally cast aside as worthless. Every man suffers the same ignorance and fate.

Periodically and predictably, man’s recital is judged ‘not good’. His performance is at once stopped – switched off as mechanically as Krapp’s tape machine – then rewound and restarted at a point where the script will be adhered to strictly. Nonetheless, inquisition after inquisition fails to find any man capable of confessing any comprehension of the what or where of his existence.

The Voice reels on relentlessly, all humanity suffering the passing of time in hopelessly hoping to make sense of the human condition.