No Danger of the Spiritual Thing: Short Works by Beckett
The workload was increased for both artists and audiences for one of two programs on opening weekend at the Museum of Contemporary Art, when five pieces–Play, Footfalls, Fizzle 4, Rough for Theater I, and Not I–were mounted in various spaces. Magnus spent six months negotiating with the MCA, trying to gain audience access to nonpublic corridors and to galleries during off hours. To see all five shows audience members had to climb and descend many flights of stairs, making it impossible for people with disabilities to attend, and sometimes sit on the floor or stand to watch performances. And because the audience was split in three and led by docents through the productions in different orders, the actors had to perform their demanding plays three times in rapid succession.
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The even more exhausting Texts for Nothing (performed Sundays only at Prop) hits real pay dirt. Written in 1950 and 1951, these 13 elliptical prose pieces mark a definitive shift in Beckett’s fiction, as he abandons character and narrative completely. Instead a disembodied lone consciousness (or perhaps 13 variations on a consciousness) tries to will itself into existence–and articulate a convincing reason to exist in the featureless void where it seems to be trapped. The writing is dizzyingly, sometimes numbingly nonlinear. As the voice in Text 3 says, “There’s going to be a departure, I’ll be there, I won’t miss it, it won’t be me, I’ll be here, I’ll say I’m far from here, it won’t be me, I won’t say anything.”
Where: Moving to Prop Thtr, 3502-4 N. Elston
