RELIGIOUS OVERTONES IN THE DARKENED AREA OF BECKETT'S LATER SHORT PLAYS

Junko Matoba

Samuel Beckett's darkened area on stage in his later short plays was an emptied space of a special order. It was shaped from discarding, a practice which can be paralleled to the mystic practices of Meister Eckhart; and to the artistic significance of Yohaku, the undrawn space of the Zen monochrome paintings. Beckett's knowledge of world religions and philosophies were extensive and his basic attitude was that of the contemplative, but he adamantly refrained from consummating his contemplative leanings. Thus Beckett's darkened area exists not only as a space shaped from discarding, but also as a space which had to retain the residuum.

Samuel Beckett's darkened area in his later short plays was not just a space left unoccupied, but was clearly one of the important stage-devices that were inevitable for the completion of the whole. In 1977 John Calder mentioned in his review of a televised version of "Not I", that the impact of its staging in the darkened theatre was greater than the television version in which a close up of the moving Mouth was televised without the Auditor. He writes: "[ ... ] the closeness of the mouth [ ... ] has less impact on me than when watched at a distance in a darkened theatre [ ... ]" (121). Beckett's intention of having this darkened area not only in "Not I" but in other later plays was not just a normal theatrical blackout, but a darkness of a different order. Xerxes Mehta points out that Beckett's darkness "is part of the weave of the work, the most important single element of the image"; and as expected of a stage-director Mehta replenishes: "It [darkness] should be as absolute as can be managed. Darkness at this level becomes a torm of sense deprivation" (170). The darkened area was not just a surplus space because the stage was deprived of all scenery and props and only the minimum of objects remained; Beckett's empty space was a stage-device which gave shape to his view of life and man, and it was also shaped accordingly. Beckett was most eloquent not through discursive language but through the language of 'discursive shape' in drama. What appears to be merely a secondary stage-device as a darkened empty space is, by Beckett, given a shape to partake in the shaping of the whole. Those plays in which this device is of special importance are "Not

31 I", That Time, Footfalls, A Piece of Monologue, Rockaby and Ohio Impromptu. All have in their stage direction, "rest of the stage in darkness" or much to that effect; and followed closely is another stage-direction which says to place the main object on stage "off centre". "Rest of the stage in darkness" stands for the emptiness of the designated area, and "off centre" is a device effecting unbalance, or asymmetry, which enhances the expansion and depth of the empty space. In these plays, none of the main object (or personage) moves. Even May in Footfalls is restricted to a pseudo-stasis for she merely repeats the coming and going on a strip which is fixed to a location "a little off centre audience right". Anything visible is restricted to a single object and is always made sure that they are located "off centre". In A Piece of Monologue, the pallet bed and the lamp are visible props, but as the play proceeds, they begin to mingle and are swallowed into the spoken invisible objects such as the unframed pictures and the window panes, so that actually there is only the main object, the Speaker, who must stand "well off centre downstage audience left". Listener and Reader in Ohio Impromptu are sitting "towards end of long side" of a white table "audience right". Their appearances are identical and are sitting close almost touching each other, one facing the audience and the other in profile, and gradually there are hints for them to merge into one. "Not I" is the only exception for having a second object, the Auditor, as against the main object, the Mouth. However, the characteristic feature of asymmetry of the Beckett empty space is kept, for the Auditor stands opposite on the left to the Mouth's right, and downstage to the Mouth's upstage. Thus, these plays indeed structure a stage-scape of a darkened area whose features are emptiness and asymmetry. These features, are indeed the two most prominent qualities that construct the undrawn space of the Chinese originated monochrome paintings of Japan, called Sumi-e (or Suibokuga). The empty space, or the undrawn white of the paper is called Yohaku. The Japanese priest-artists had brought back from China since the 12th century, the art of the monochrome ink painting as contingent of Zen Buddhism. Y ohaku, as a major consequential device was imitated from the beginning and later adapted and accomplished to suite the Japanese climate, especially by Sesshu Toyo of the 15th century. Take for instance, the most popular motif, mountain and water; Sesshu's Four Seasons of that motif outlines crags looming high into the heavens with ample space between them, or there might be a tiny thin stroke of the brush connoting a sampan on a wide span of emptiness. Naturally the white of the paper is definitely a part of the whole landscape and the viewer is to draw in the mind's eye, sky, river,

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