Rockaby

Last updated

Rockaby is a short one-woman play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English in 1980, at the request of Daniel Labeille, who produced it on behalf of Programs in the Arts, State University of New York, for a festival and symposium in commemoration of Beckett's 75th birthday. The play premiered on April 8, 1981, at the State University of New York at Buffalo, starring Billie Whitelaw and directed by Alan Schneider. A documentary film, Rockaby, by D. A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus records the rehearsal process and the first performance. This production went on to be performed at the Annex at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, [1] and, in December 1982, at the Cottesloe, Royal National Theatre, London.[ citation needed ] Puerto Rican actress and director Victoria Espinosa took a role in the play when she was in her 90s. [2]

Contents

Synopsis

A woman dressed in an evening gown is sitting in a wooden rocking chair; no other props or scenery are called for. She sits totally still until the very end of the play. The chair apparently starts and stops "rocking of its own accord, since her feet are visible on its footrest. The motion creates a ghostly atmosphere." [3] The woman (W) is described in the notes as "Prematurely old. Unkempt grey hair. Huge eyes in white expressionless face." [4] Beckett is equally specific when it comes to the gown: "Black lacy high-necked … Long sleeves. Jet sequins … Incongruous headdress set with extravagant trimming to catch the light." [4]

As she rocks she hears a "dull, expressionless" [5] pre-recorded voice (V) – her own – recount details from her own life, and that of her dead mother's, in what Enoch Brater describes as "a performance poem in the shape of a play." [6]

"The French title, Berceuse, means both ‘rocking chair’ and ‘lullaby’, while the English Rockaby refers to a traditional lullaby in which a baby's cradle falls from a treetop, thus bring together in one song the images of birth and death which are so often juxtaposed in Beckett." [7] Both a traditional cradle and a rocking chair have rockers. "[T]he synchrony of the rocking motion and the dimeter verse line – one back-and-forth per line – plays against the recorded narrative." [8] To achieve this effect Billie Whitelaw was encouraged by Beckett to "‘think of it as a lullaby’ which she interpreted as ‘soft, monotonous, no colour, soothing, rhythmic … [a] drive toward death." [9]

another creature there
somewhere there
behind the pane
another living soul
one other living soul
till the end came
in the end came
close of a long day

From Rockaby (1980)

The play can be broken down into four sections. All begin with the childlike demand, "More" (consider Oliver Twist’s request for more gruel). Billie Whitelaw pronounced it more like ‘maw’ – a pun – "to suggest a need for nourishment." [10] or even "Ma". [11]

Intermittently, she joins in three of the lines: ‘time she stopped’, ‘living soul’ and ‘rock her off’" [12] at which point the rocking stops and only starts again when she demands "More," each time a little softer than the time before. The fact that time play begins with this word indicates that this scene has been being played out for some time before this. At the end of the final section the woman fails to join in with the voice, the rocking ceases and the woman's head slowly inclines; "she has apparently died." [12]

Section 1

"The first section details W’s decision to stop going ‘to and fro’ in the outside world in search of ‘another like herself’" [13] evocative of Molloy’s quest to find his mother. The voice’s speech is fragmented and simple "creating an affinity between the language of the child and that of senescence and dying." [14] This could also be a reason for the "huge eyes". [15]

As with Not I , the voice speaks in the third person.

Section 2

The second section reprises and therefore emphasizes the decision taken in Section 1. It also marks the "beginning of her next phase of activity – sitting at her upstairs window, searching the windows opposite [16] to see another ‘one living soul … like herself.’" [17]

"Life is nothing more nor less than the act of perception or the state of being perceived, or, in the words of Bishop Berkeley which find echoes throughout Beckett’s work, ‘esse est percipi’ [18] (‘to be is to be perceived’). She sees no one however and is seen by no one. "Voice has become the woman’s own Berkeleyan observer, without whose surveillance any claim to existence would be invalidated." [19]

Section 3

In the third section the woman has lowered her standards again. She would be content now to simply see a raised blind as evidence of life. At the end of this section she realises it is "time she stopped" [20] even this activity.

"A drawn blind [is] and old custom signifying death" [21] and the last thing she does herself before sitting down in the old rocker is "let down the blind" [22] before closing her own eyelids. This decision [is] first announced in part three by the lines ‘till the day came/in the end came/close of a long day’ reiterated at the opening of part four. [23]

"The objects surrounding [the] ‘window’ endow it with layers of feeling. ‘Pane’ and ‘blind’ imply more than the things of windows, and ironically comment on the classical metaphor of ‘window’ as ‘eyes of the soul.’" [11]

Section 4

In the final "section V describes W’s relocation downstairs to sit in her mother’s rocking chair where she will wait for death" [17] in exactly the same manner as her mother before her.

The action on stage becomes concurrent with the narration which becomes a "little softer each time" [24] until the rocking stops completely. She has stopped actively searching for another and given up watching for proof of the existence of another, but through all of this she has always had the voice for company; now she is "done with that" [25] too and has concluded that it is time she herself "was her own other … living soul." [22]

The fact that "the word ‘down’ is repeated six times in the first seven lines of this final section, while it is used only once in the preceding sections (‘all blinds down’) ... coupled with the play's first mention of the ‘steep stair’, gives verbal shape to the internal descent that is about to be recounted. The woman is descending into the depths of her self." [26] Billie Whitelaw has said: "[The voice of the woman in Rockaby] gets softer because she's getting weaker, and the rock of the chair should be lessening, and the light is lessening. ... In fact, the woman in Rockaby is actually going further and further down that steep stair. So with the last ‘More’ she knows she's on the way out, and as long as that rocker keeps rocking she's all right. Once it stops she's gone... I do find it very frightening to do. And I find it desperately lonely to do. I feel very, very lonely in that chair." [27]

"In French, ‘chair’ means flesh, especially naked flesh, so that the combined image of ‘rocking chair,’ ‘mother rocker,’ and ‘rocking flesh’ bring together inside a single word two realities of subject and object, the object being endowed with subjective realism." [11]

The woman selects what initially appears like an unusual outfit for this final scene, an elaborate evening gown. Whether this was the one her mother used when she went through the same steps is unclear; it does however "marks both the uniqueness of the occasion of her retreat to the rocking chair and, as well, her re-enactment of her mother’s action. Whatever her motive in wearing this dress, it constitutes a remnant of an earlier life." [28]

It has been suggested that the "other" that the woman has been searching for all this time is actually her mother. [29] There is clearly an underlying text here of a little lost girl looking for her ‘mammy’. Having abandoned the search she opts for the rocker's "embrace" [4] ("those arms at last" [25] ) dolled up as her mother [30] so that she can fulfil both roles, she can become her "own other". "Other" and "mother" sound very similar. As Molloy puts it: "I have her room. I sleep in her bed … I have taken her place. I must resemble her more and more. [31]

Background

time she stopped
sitting at her window
quiet at her window
only window
facing other windows
only other windows
all eyes
all sides
high and low
time she stopped

From Rockaby (1980)

Although Billie Whitelaw has very much made the role of W her own, it is not strictly true that the part was written specifically for her, even though in a letter to The Actors' Equity Association in 1982 Beckett intimated that it had been. [32] "In his original letter asking Beckett for the play, Labeille had directly associated the name of Irene Worth … with the project." [12] Whitelaw only came to play the part because Worth was offered a film role and the opening of the play could not be postponed to accommodate her. [33] Beckett declared himself "very pleased with switch to Billie" [34] and her performance benefited from a high degree of support from him as always.

As with all Beckett's later plays it is clear he has drawn again on personal memories. "There was the frail figure of his maternal grandmother, ‘little Granny’, Annie Roe, dressed in ‘her best black’, [20] sitting in a rocking chair at the window of Cooldrinagh, where she lived out the final years of her life. The woman in the play gazes out at other windows for ‘another living soul’, as Beckett himself sat, often for hours on end, staring at the rows of cell windows on the grey Santé prison" [12] which backed his apartment in the Boulevard Saint-Jacques. [35]

Needless to say, knowing Beckett to be the art lover he was, one can catch glimpses of a number of paintings he was familiar with: Whistler's Mother , van Gogh’s La Berceuse or Rembrandt’s Margaretha Trip (de Geer) . A favourite of his, Beckett owned a copy of Jack B Yeats’s exhibition catalogue, which included one entitled Sleep, a painting of an old woman a sitting by the window, with her head drooped low onto her chest.

Krapp’s Last Tape

As Krapp sits on the "bench by the weir" [36] he realises his mother has passed on when "the blind went down, one of those dirty brown roller affairs." [37] In 1950 Beckett himself sat beside his dying mother's bed "until he could stand it no more [and] went for a walk along the Grand Canal. [When] he returned to the nursing home [he] sat outside for a while on a bench, shivering in the evening wind. When he looked up at her window, he saw the shade go down, the signal she had died. [38]

Murphy

Murphy’s rocking chair is the one possession to which he is attached. It gives his body pleasure and sets free his mind. "The chair asserts the pun ‘off his rocker’" [39] which could similarly refer to the dead mother in Rockaby who people maintained had "gone off her head". [20]

Film

"The room in Film contains a rocking chair with a carved headrest, which when ‘O’ sits back, frames his head. His rocking matches his emotions as he gazes at various images of himself and when ‘E’ finally violates the angle of immunity. [39]

Related Research Articles

Play is a one-act play by Samuel Beckett. It was written between 1962 and 1963 and first produced in German as Spiel on 14 June 1963 at the Ulmer Theatre in Ulm-Donau, Germany, directed by Deryk Mendel, with Nancy Illig (W1), Sigfrid Pfeiffer (W2) and Gerhard Winter (M). The first performance in English was on 7 April 1964 at the Old Vic in London. It was not well-received upon its British premiere.

<i>Film</i> (film) 1965 U.S. film written by Samuel Beckett

Film is a 1965 short film written by Samuel Beckett, his only screenplay. It was commissioned by Barney Rosset of Grove Press. Writing began on 5 April 1963 with a first draft completed within four days. A second draft was produced by 22 May and a 40-leaf shooting script followed thereafter. It was filmed in New York City in July 1964. Beckett and Alan Schneider originally wanted Charlie Chaplin, Zero Mostel and Jack MacGowran; however, they eventually did not get involved. Beckett then suggested Buster Keaton. James Karen, who was to have a small part in the film, also supported having Keaton. The filmed version differs from Beckett's original script but with his approval since he was on set all the time, this being his only visit to the United States, as stated in the script printed in Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett.

<i>Come and Go</i> 1965 play by Samuel Beckett

Come and Go is a short play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English in January 1965 and first performed at the Schillertheater, Berlin on 14 January 1966. Its English language premiere was at the Peacock Theatre, Dublin on 28 February 1968, and its British premiere was at the Royal Festival Hall in London on 9 December 1968. It was written for and dedicated to the publisher John Calder.

Ohio Impromptu is a "playlet" by Samuel Beckett.

<i>Krapps Last Tape</i> 1958 Irish theatrical play by Samuel Beckett

Krapp's Last Tape is a 1958 one-act play, in English, by Samuel Beckett. With a cast of one man, it was written for Northern Irish actor Patrick Magee and first titled "Magee monologue". It was inspired by Beckett's experience of listening to Magee reading extracts from Molloy and From an Abandoned Work on the BBC Third Programme in December 1957.

Happy Days is a play in two acts, written by Samuel Beckett first performed in 1961. Viewed positively by critics, it was named in The Independent as one of the 40 best plays of all time.

Catastrophe is a short play by Samuel Beckett, written in French in 1982 at the invitation of A.I.D.A. and “[f]irst produced in the Avignon Festival … Beckett considered it ‘massacred.’” It is one of his few plays to deal with a political theme and, arguably, holds the title of Beckett's most optimistic work. Beckett "wrote the short play Catastrophe about control and censorship" and dedicated it to the Czech dramatist Václav Havel, who was in prison at the time. Havel wrote a play called Mistake "as a response to the one Beckett had written in solidarity." "In February 1984, in one of the most significant milestones in the history of Index on Censorship, both plays were published for the first time." In January 2022, after almost 38 years, in 50th birthday celebration of Index, they asked "Iranian playwright Reza Shirmarz to write his own response to Beckett's Catastrophe." Shirmarz wrote his play Muzzled which was published by Index as a dramatic response to Beckett's Catastrophe. Giving his viewpoints on Beckett's play in an interview with Index, Shirmarz said that "Catastrophe is about censored communication, the ritualistic representation and the symbolic image of human relationship constrained by external forces, a deterministic, political and post-dramatic text which demonstrates how humans are coerced to be and live in a torturous limbo. [In Catastrophe], Beckett's Protagonist is deprived of free will by the systems surrounding him and the systematic control imposed by others, except at the moment he moves his head up and looks at the spectators. Despite his psychosomatic pain, he talks through his silence and protests through his immobility. As so-called social factors and audiences, we are reminded by the playwright that we are not able to get out of the cage the sociopolitical conventions have imprisoned us in and we must abide by the unbreachable laws brought in by the global structures and conglomerates in order to survive."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Billie Whitelaw</span> English actress (1932–2014)

Billie Honor Whitelaw was an English actress. She worked in close collaboration with Irish playwright Samuel Beckett for 25 years and was regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of his works. She was also known for her portrayal of Mrs. Baylock, the demonic nanny in the 1976 horror film The Omen.

Not I is a short dramatic monologue written in 1972 by Samuel Beckett which was premiered at the "Samuel Beckett Festival" by the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center, New York.

Quad is a television play by Samuel Beckett, written and first produced and broadcast in 1981. It first appeared in print in 1984 where the work is described as "[a] piece for four players, light and percussion" and has also been called a "ballet for four people."

<i>Footfalls</i> Literary work

Footfalls is a play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English, between 2 March and December 1975 and was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre as part of the Samuel Beckett Festival, on May 20, 1976 directed by Beckett himself. Billie Whitelaw, for whom the piece had been written, played May whilst Rose Hill voiced the mother.

That Time is a one-act play by Samuel Beckett, written in English between 8 June 1974 and August 1975. The play was specially written for actor Patrick Magee, who delivered its first performance on the occasion of Beckett's seventieth birthday celebration, at London's Royal Court Theatre on 20 May 1976.

<i>Eh Joe</i>

Eh Joe is a piece for television, written in English by Samuel Beckett, his first work for the medium. It was begun on the author's fifty-ninth birthday, 13 April 1965, and completed by 1 May. "It [was] followed by six undated typescripts .”

<i>Embers</i> Play written by Samuel Beckett

Embers is a radio play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English in 1957. First broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on 24 June 1959, the play won the RAI prize at the Prix Italia awards later that year. Donald McWhinnie directed Jack MacGowran – for whom the play was specially written – as "Henry", Kathleen Michael as "Ada" and Patrick Magee as "Riding Master" and "Music Master". The play was translated into French by Beckett himself and Robert Pinget as Cendres and was published in 1959 by Les Éditions de Minuit. The first stage production was by the French Graduate Circle of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Festival, 1977."

Rough for Radio II is a radio play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in French in 1961 as Pochade radiophonique and published in Minuit 16, November 1975. Beckett translated the work into English shortly before its broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 13 April 1976. Martin Esslin directed Harold Pinter, Billie Whitelaw (Stenographer) and Patrick Magee (Fox). The English-language version was first published in Ends and Odds as Radio II.

<i>All That Fall</i>

All That Fall is a one-act radio play by Samuel Beckett produced following a request from the BBC. It was written in English and completed in September 1956. The autograph copy is titled Lovely Day for the Races. It was published in French, in a translation by Robert Pinget revised by Beckett himself, as Tous ceux qui tombent.

... but the clouds ... is a television play by Samuel Beckett. Beckett wrote it between October–November 1976 "to replace a film of Play which the BBC had sent [him] for approval " due to "the poor quality of the film". Donald McWhinnie directed Billie Whitelaw and Ronald Pickup. It was first broadcast on 17 April 1977 as part of a programme of three Beckett plays entitled 'Shades' on BBC2. It was first published in Ends and Odds (Faber) 1977. An early title for the piece was Poetry only love.

Ghost Trio is a television play, written in English by Samuel Beckett. It was written in 1975, taped in October 1976 and the first broadcast was on BBC2 on 17 April 1977 as part of The Lively Arts programme Beckett himself entitled Shades. Donald McWhinnie directed with Ronald Pickup and Billie Whitelaw. The play's original title was to be Tryst. "On Beckett’s notebook, the word was crossed out vigorously and the new title Ghost Trio written next to it. On the title page of the BBC script the same handwritten title change can be found, indicating that it must have been corrected at the very last minute."

Nacht und Träume is the last television play written and directed by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English (mid-1982) for the German channel Süddeutscher Rundfunk, recorded in October 1982 and broadcast on 19 May 1983 where it attracted "an audience of two million viewers." The mime artist Helfrid Foron played both parts.

Walter D. Asmus is a German theatre director.

References

  1. ↑ La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club official web site
  2. ↑ Perales, Rosalina (2016), "Espinosa, Victoria", Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro–Latin American Biography, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780199935796.001.0001/acref-9780199935796-e-744?rskey=uez4vw&result=742, ISBN   978-0-19-993579-6 , retrieved 2024-10-10
  3. ↑ Ackerley, C. J. and Gontarski, S. E., (Eds.) The Faber Companion to Samuel Beckett, (London: Faber and Faber, 2006), pp 484,485
  4. 1 2 3 Beckett, S., Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 273
  5. ↑ Specified only in the later French version. Referenced in Hale, J. A., ‘Perspective in Rockaby’ in Davis, R. J. and Butler, L. St J., (Eds.) ‘Make Sense Who May’: Essays on Samuel Beckett’s Later Works (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1988), p 160 n 8
  6. ↑ Brater, E., ‘Light, Sound, Movement and Action in Beckett’s Rockaby’ in Modern Drama 25 (Sept 1982), p 345
  7. ↑ Hale, J. A., ‘Perspective in Rockaby’ in Davis, R. J. and Butler, L. St J., (Eds.) ‘Make Sense Who May’: Essays on Samuel Beckett’s Later Works (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1988), p 66
  8. ↑ Cohn, R., Back to Beckett (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), p 360
  9. ↑ Gussow, M., Conversations with and about Beckett (New York: Grove Press, 1996) p 88
  10. ↑ Doll, M. A., ‘Walking and Rocking: Ritual Acts in Footfalls and Rockaby’ in Davis, R. J. and Butler, L. St J., (Eds.) ‘Make Sense Who May’: Essays on Samuel Beckett’s Later Works (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1988), p 46
  11. 1 2 3 Doll, M. A., ‘The Demeter Myth in Beckett’ in Journal of Beckett Studies Nos 11 and 12
  12. 1 2 3 4 Knowlson, J., Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett (London: Bloomsbury, 1996), p 662
  13. ↑ Lyons, C. R., Samuel Beckett, MacMillan Modern Dramatists (London: MacMillan Education, 1983), p 177
  14. ↑ Laughlin, K. L., ‘Seeing is Perceiving: Beckett’s Later Plays and the Theory of Audience Response’ in Davis, R. J. and Butler, L. St J., (Eds.) ‘Make Sense Who May’: Essays on Samuel Beckett’s Later Works (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1988), p 34
  15. ↑ The University of Illinois Eye Center and other sources say a baby is born with eyes that are about 75% the size they eventually will reach by adulthood. But still other sources, including Prevent Blindness America, say a baby's eye size is about two-thirds the size of an adult eye by the age of six months.
  16. ↑ The composer Charles Dodge, met with Beckett in Paris to discuss preparing a performance version of Cascando. Beckett used the occasion to gush about a new apartment he had just taken. He was particularly excited because its window overlooked the yard of an adjacent prison. Charles asked what Beckett could see out his window. Beckett replied: "A face, sometimes part of one." - Schell, M., Beckett, Openness and Experimental Cinema, 1990/1998
  17. 1 2 Lyons, C. R., Samuel Beckett, MacMillan Modern Dramatists (London: MacMillan Education, 1983), p 178
  18. ↑ Hale, J. A., ‘Perspective in Rockaby’ in Davis, R. J. and Butler, L. St J., (Eds.) ‘Make Sense Who May’: Essays on Samuel Beckett’s Later Works (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1988), p 74
  19. ↑ Brown, V., Yesterday’s Deformities: A Discussion of the Role of Memory and Discourse in the Plays of Samuel Beckett Archived 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Machine , (doctoral thesis) p 206
  20. 1 2 3 Beckett, S., Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 280
  21. ↑ O’Brien, E., The Beckett Country (Dublin: The Black Cat Press, 1986), pp 197,198
  22. 1 2 Beckett, S., Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 281
  23. ↑ Hale, J. A., ‘Perspective in Rockaby’ in Davis, R. J. and Butler, L. St J., (Eds.) ‘Make Sense Who May’: Essays on Samuel Beckett’s Later Works (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1988), p 73
  24. ↑ Beckett, S., Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 274
  25. 1 2 Beckett, S., Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 282
  26. ↑ Hale, J. A., ‘Perspective in Rockaby’ in Davis, R. J. and Butler, L. St J., (Eds.) ‘Make Sense Who May’: Essays on Samuel Beckett’s Later Works (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1988), p 70
  27. ↑ Kalb, J., Beckett in Performance, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p 240
  28. ↑ Lyons, C. R., Samuel Beckett, MacMillan Modern Dramatists (London: MacMillan Education, 1983), p 180
  29. ↑ Oppenheim, L., ‘Female Subjectivity in Not I and Rockaby’ in Ben-Zvi, L., (Ed.) Women in Beckett: Performance and Critical Perspectives (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992), p 222
  30. ↑ "Girls spen[d] more time with dolls, in domestic role play and dressing up." – Giddings, M., Halverson, C. F., ‘Young Children's Use of Toys in Home Environments’ in Family Relations, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Jan., 1981), pp. 69
  31. ↑ Beckett, S., Trilogy (London: Calder Publications, 1994), p 8
  32. ↑ A copy of Beckett’s letter to Equity dated 9 Feb 1982 was enclosed with one to Alan Schneider of the same date (Boston). Referenced in Knowlson, J., Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett (London: Bloomsbury, 1996), p 823 n 12
  33. ↑ Interview with Irene Worth, 16 May 1994. Referenced in Knowlson, J., Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett (London: Bloomsbury, 1996), p 823 n 16
  34. ↑ SB to Daniel Labeille, 17 Feb 1981 (Labeille). Referenced in Knowlson, J., Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett (London: Bloomsbury, 1996), p 823 n 18
  35. ↑ Knowlson, J., Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett (London: Bloomsbury, 1996), p 476
  36. ↑ Beckett, S., Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 59
  37. ↑ Beckett, S., Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 60
  38. ↑ Bair, D., Samuel Beckett: A Biography (London: Vintage, 1990), p 429
  39. 1 2 Ackerley, C. J. and Gontarski, S. E., (Eds.) The Faber Companion to Samuel Beckett, (London: Faber and Faber, 2006), p 485
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.