Samuel Beckett's "Come and Go"

Author(s): Samuel Beckett and Gay McAuley

Source: Educational Theatre Journal, Vol. 18, No. 4, Special International Theatre Issue (Dec.,
1966), pp. 439-442
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3205271
Accessed: 29/09/2008 10:58
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http://www.jstor.org
SAMUEL BECKETT'S COME AND
GO
GAY McAULEY
Samuel Beckett's latest
play,
Come and
Go' lasts
only
three minutes in
perform-
ance and a considerable
part
of this
time is taken
up
with silence or whis-
pering
that the audience is unable to
hear. This remarkable
play
was
given
its first
performance
in
France,
in the
author's own
translation,
at the Odeon-
The'tre de France on the
7
March
1966,
and it forms
part
of that theatre's
rep-
ertory
for the
1966-1967
season. It was
produced
by Jean-Louis
Barrault and
the decor and costumes were
designed
by
Matias.
The
dialogue
that can be heard is
bare and bleak in the
extreme,
and in the
four brief
pages
of the French edition
the
stage
direction "silence" occurs six-
teen times. Yet this
play,
or "dramati-
cule" as Beckett calls
it,
makes a
pow-
erful and
haunting impression
on the
audience
and,
although
it is so incred-
ibly
short,
contains a number of the
themes which make
up
Beckett's most
constant
preoccupation.
Three old women sit on a
bench,
remembering
their
past, conversing
in
blank,
almost inaudible
voices,
filling
in
the
present
with an
apparently meaning-
MIiss McAuley
has been
working
on a thesis
at the
University of
Bristol on the dramatic
method
of
Samuel Beckett and
Eugene
lonesco,
and is
presently
in Paris in
pursuit of
this
study.
l
It has not
yet
been
published
in
English
and so all
quotations
are taken from the French
version,
Va et
Vient,
which was
published bv
Les Editions de Minuit in
1966
under the title
Comedie et actes divers.
less routine of
getting up, going
out,
re-
turning
and
sitting
down
again.
In each
of their lives there is some
unspeakable
secret. It is not clear whether this is
something
which has
already happened
but which the character
directly
con-
cerned does not
yet
know,
or whether
it is
something
which is
going
to
hap-
pen
at some later
stage.
But the future
is dark and comfortless whether it con-
tains the
unspeakable
event itself or
simply knowledge
of the
unspeakable.
Each of these women is aware of the
situation of her two friends but does
not admit that she too
might
be sim-
ilarly
threatened. This is the situation
of Come and Go.
Beckett,
as usual true to his
terrify-
ing
vision,
is
again dealing
with an
endgame;
in this
play,
as in
Play
or
Happy Days,
human
experience
is re-
duced to an absolute
minimum,
the char-
acters have
nothing
else to do but wait
for
death,
only,
as usual in Beckett's
world,
death never comes. For Vladimir
and
Estragon,
for Hamm and
Clov,
for
Winnie and for the nameless three in
Play
the real horror is that the end
never comes. The routine
goes
on and
on,
morning
is followed
by night,
light
by
darkness,
speech by
silence; life and
all the
suffering
that it involves is like
Vladimir's
song
in En Attendant
Godot,
a
process
that,
once
begun,
cannot be
ended,
an
inescapable, boring, eternally
repetitive cycle.
EDUCATIONAL THEATRE
JOURNAL
At the end of Conme and Go the three
women hold hands
together
in an odd
and
complicated
manner. Vi is
sitting
in
the middle with Ru on her
right
side
and Flo on her
left;
she holds Ru's
right
hand with her
right
and Flo's left
with her
left,
while Ru and Flo
join
their free hands on her
lap.
The cur-
tain falls on this
image
of the three
bodies linked
together,
arms crossed
over,
hands
joined
and knees
touching.
It
suggests
one of those Hindu statues of
several bodies in
complicated jutaposi-
tion which are
supposed
to
represent
certain universal and eternal
qualities.
When their hands are
clasped
in this
way
Flo
says:
"Ru.
(Silence)
Vi.
(Silence)
Je
sens les
bagues."2
No
rings
are
ap-
parent
on the six hands
although
Beck-
ett
stipulates
in the
stage
directions that
the hands should be made
up
to be as
prominent
as
possible
in the
gloom.
The
ring
is of course a traditional
symbol
of
unity
and eternal
recurrence,
but in
the French translation Beckett uses the
word
"bague"
which
implies
the dec-
orative
ring
rather than the
simple
cir-
cular "anneau." The fact that in
any
case no
rings
are
apparent perhaps
im-
plies
that the
unity
or the
"being
to-
gether" suggested by
the
hand-holding
is an illusion.
The idea of a
cycle
is
emphasized
in
the
dialogue
which follows
exactly
the
same
pattern
three times over. There is
the
dreadful,
unmentionable secret in
the lives of each of the characters. The
one who is threatened is unaware of
it,
or at least does not admit to
being
aware
of
it,
but she knows that her friends are
threatened. Each time the one
being
told the secret
concerning
their absent
friend
responds
with a
cry
of shocked
surprise
and
grief.3
Then there is a
'
Comn;die
et actes
divers, p.
42.
3 In the French text of the
play
the re-
sponse
to the dreadful news is a verbal excla-
mation: "Misericorde." "Malheur" and
"Misere"
(pp. 40-41).
It is
interesting
that
query
as to whether the threatened
friend is aware of the
secret,
and a
brief,
automatic
prayer
that the
divinity
will
spare
her this
knowledge ("Dieu
veuille
que
non,"
"A Dieu ne
plaise," "Que
Dieu l'en
preserve").4
The
slow,
repet-
itive
dialogue
reinforces the
slow,
formal
pattern
of the movements and creates
an
atmosphere
of timelessness
suffering
and
inevitability.
The technical instructions in Beck-
ett's later
plays
have become more and
more detailed. In En Attendant Godot
the
only
scenic indication is "Route a
la
campagne,
avec arbre.
Soir.,"
although
the careful
timing
of Pozzo's
dialogue
and his business with
pipe, vaporizer,
whip,
and chicken bone show that Beck-
ett
already
attached
great importance
to the
interplay
of
dialogue
and action.
The four
pages
of text of Come and
Go are
supplemented by
two
pages
of
technical
details;
the
lighting,
the cos-
tumes,
the
bench,
the
voices,
the move-
ments,
the exits are all
carefully
de-
scribed,
and it is clear that all these
aspects
of the
stage performance
have
a
precise
function in this
play.
Beckett
gives
a director little
scope
for
imag-
inative
interpretation
or
staging
here;
he has
thought
out
every
detail of the
performance
and is
expressing
himself
through
the total
stage picture.
This
is
why
even such minute details as the
volume of a voice or the color of a
dress must be
exactly
as he
says,
other-
wise there is a risk that some
significance
will be lost.
He instructs that the characters wear
"Manteaux tres
longs,
boutonnes
jus-
all these exclamations
begin
with the lettei
"m," the thirteenth letter,
the middle of the
alphabet,
and a letter which seems to have
a
special significance
for Beckett. But in
Jean-Louis
Barrault's
production
these words
were
suppressed,
and in each case a
sharp
intake of breath
greeted
the
whispered
news.
This
change
was
clearly
made
only
on
Beckett's instructions so this
aspect
of the
text is
perhaps
of
secondary
importance.
4
Comedie et actes
divers, pp.
40-41.
440
SAMUEL BECKETT'S COME AND GO
qu'au
cou,
violet sombre
(Ru), rouge
sombre
(Vi), jaune
sombre
(Flo).
Cha-
peaux
sombres
quelconques
a bords
assez
larges pour que
les
visages
soient
dans l'ombre. Les trois
personnages
aussi
ressemblants
que possible,
diff6rencies
par
la couleur seule. .. ."5 The coats
do not
really
show the
shape
of the
body inside,
the faces are
indistinguish-
able in the
gloom
and the bench is in-
visible when all three are seated. The
visual
aspect
of the
play
is thus
largely
reduced to these three
patches
of
color,
slowly replacing
each other in an
odd,
formal
pattern,
the six hands
strangely
prominent
in the
surrounding gloom
and shadows.
One of the most remarkable
things
about the
play
is this
pattern
made
by
the
coming
and
going
of the three char-
acters,
which is
obviously
far from ar-
bitrary.
Its full
significance
would not
be
immediately apparent
to a theatre
audience, but it is nevertheless interest-
ing
to note that the movements seem to
be based on a formal
pattern,
like a
calculus,
and that the whole
play
has
been constructed with mathematical
precision.6
Flo,
Vi and Ru are
sitting
in
a
straight
row on a
bench,
with Vi in
the center. When she
gets up
and
goes
out Flo moves into the center
position
to
whisper
to Ru. Then Vi comes back
and sits where Flo was at the
beginning.
This same
pattern
is
repeated
three
times;
always
the one in the center
leaves,
is
replaced alternately by
the
character on the left and
right,
and then
returns to the
empty
seat. At the end
each character has been in the center
once and has been out
once;
Vi is
back in the center but Ru and Flo have
changed places.
The
complete pattern
consists of ten movements and is the
shortest method of
achieving
this re-
5
Ibid., p.
43
6
am grateful to Mr. A. Grieder of the
University
of Zurich for advice on the mathe-
matical
aspects
of this
play.
suit.
Any
other substitution
pattern
(except
for a
simple reversal-right
to
center,
left to
center,
right
to center
instead of left to
center,
right
to
center,
left to
center)
makes it
impossible
for
Vi to be back in the
center,
Ru and Flo
having
had their turn there and been
out.
The
position
at the end with Ru and
Flo
having changed
sides
suggests
either
that the
pattern
is not
complete
or
that Vi is the most
important
character
and the relative
position
of the other
two is therefore irrelevant. There is
nothing
in the
dialogue
to
suggest
that
Vi is more
important
than the other
two,
and an
incomplete cycle
would be
very
unusual for
Beckett,
but in order
to reach the exact
opening position
it
would be
necessary
to continue the sub-
stitution
pattern
for another nine
stages
(see
Columns I and IV
below).
In order to understand
why
Beckett
stops
at
position
io,
to understand how
positions
1-10 do in fact form a com-
plete cycle,
it is
necessary
to
forget
about who is on the left and who on
the
right,
and to see that the
significant
positions
are
"being together
of
three,"
"being separated,"
and
"being together
of two." If each of these
stages
is
given
a
symbol
with,
in brackets after
it,
the
character who is in the center or
missing
(see
Columns II and
III)
it will be seen
that
positions
i, io,
and
19 are
identical,
and that
positions
12-18 are an identical
repetition
of
positions 2-9.
Becket's
pattern ignores
the
right
and
left
positions
and considers
only "being
together"
and
"being separated."
The
significance
of this in Come and Go is
that it
suggests
that the
precise
form of
a
relationship
is irrelevant and that the
only important thing
is whether there
is communication or isolation. The three
characters move
slowly through
their
routine,
there seems no reason for their
moving,
there is no outside
compulsion,
441
EDUCATIONAL THEATRE
JOURNAL
Col. I Col. II Col. III Col. IV
. F V R a
(V)
2. F R /
(V) / (V)
11. R F
3.
F R
y (F) y (F)
12. R F
4.
V F R a
(F)
a
(F) 13.
R F V
5. V
R
/
(F)
/
(F) 14.
R
V
6. V R
y
(R) y(R) 15.
R V
7.
V R Fa
(R) a(R)
16. FRV
8. VF /
(R)
/
(R) 17.
F V
9.
V F
y
(V)
y
(V)
18. F V
o1. R V F a
(V)
a
(V) 19,
F V R
a
equals being together
of three
/3
equals being separated
y equals being together
of two
and
yet they
continue,
round and
round,
from the dark to the
light,
from the
void to the
bench;
"being together"
is
succeeded
by "being separated"
in an
eternal
pattern
which cannot
evolve,
which serves no useful
purpose,
which
simply
exists and
repeats
itself.
The
empty,
mechanical
dialogue
and
the unmotivated
exits,
entrances and
changes
of
position
are bound to make
the audience
laugh,
but even in the
short time the
play
takes to
perform
the
continually intruding
silences cre-
ate a tension which undermines the
laughter
and which is all the more
pow-
erful because of it. The voices are
hushed and emotionless and the
only
words that are
clearly
audible are the
cries of
grief
and the brief
prayers.
The
bleak little reminders of the
past
are
either cut off in the middle or followed
by
an
empty
silence. Their
past
is so
enormously long
that it is almost two
pasts
(Vi:
On ne
peut pas parler
du
vieux
temps? (Silence)
De ce
qui
vint
apres?)7
and the
only
reference to the
future is the dreadful secret that each
may
one
day
discover. Their
present
consists of a continuous
process
of
change
which is not
really change
because the
essential situation continues
unchanged,
a
pattern
of unmotivated
coming
and
going, moving
from the dim
light
of
human contact to the dark wastes out-
side and back
again.
This
play
makes brilliant use of the
stage
and is a beautiful evocation of
the slow descent into death and the ev-
erlasting pattern
of communication and
loneliness which is life in
society.
7
Comedie et actes
divers, p.
42.
442