QUADRAT 1 + 2 AS A TELEVISION PLAY

The se ries of Beckett's television-plays (Eh Joe (1966), Not I (produced by BBC2 and SDR, Süddeutscher Rundfunk, in 1977), Ghost Trio (1977), ... but the clouds ... (1977), Quad (1980/81), Nacht und Träume (1983), and What Where (1985) is characterized by the technique of reduction. In What Where (the 'stage play') the characters move a Httle bit when entering or leaving the stage, in Was Wo as a TV play, however, there is no longer any movement. The characters do not enter the stage, they are merely illuminated, more accurately, only their faces are illuminated. What Where was first performed at Graz in 1983 and broadcast as a TV play, entitled Was Wo, by SDR in 1985 under the direction of Samuel Beckett and Walter Asmus. In Not I nothing but a mouth, which speaks, can be seen. The earlier work Play, which already is characterized by reduction, has been further reduced to one person, one face, one mouth. The character named "Mouth" becomes in the TV play literally a "mouth," that is, an illuminated section of a face in the dark. This transformance of a character on the stage into a pure image reflects the difference between stage play and 'motion picture,' or rather stage play and television screen. What Where is similar to Not I in the sense that it is a motionless 'moving picture' showing nothing but illuminated faces wh ich speak. In Quad, however, moving dominates and language is reduced to nothing: the characters move, but do not speak. In What Where, more accurately, in Was Wo, the German version for television, and in Not I they speak, but do not move. The technique Beckett uses in his late anti-dramatic 'microdramas' or 'dramaticules' consists of reducing human behaviour to certain isolated features. Because of the limited extensions of the TV screen, Beckett uses elose-ups and captures details. Quad is followed by Nacht und Träume, a motionless 'silent film,' a sort of painting on the screen, a pure image on an imaginary sheet, on the sheet of the imaginary; one of the last of Beckett's lifelong anticipations of death. In Play and What Where we are - as in Sartre's Huis elos - confronted with 'dead' people ("We are the last five./ In then present as were we still" utters the "Voice of Bam").l Quad, however, does not show 'dying' or dead people, it shows 'lively' people, but in a negative sense: in the sense of a hectic and futile life. Quad conveys the connotation of hasty, nervous and compulsive behaviour, of monotonous and joyless activities which are continually repeated. Jim Lewis spoke (with particular respect to part one of Quadrat 1+ Il) of "feverish monotony. ,,2 Quad, as a 'dramaticule' for four characters, no longer deals - like Krapp's Last Tape, and Not I - with an individual or with a group of acquaintances (like Play, Eh Joe, Come and Go). It is a sort of parable about society - society as an ensemble of 'monads.' The four figures mean more than just four individuals. Their allegorical quality comes to one's mind especially because there is no interaction and no communication; interaction, however, has, up to Quad been the basis of all plays with more than one person.

Quadrat 1 + 2 as a Television Play. Quadrat I+II was first written under the title Quad in 1980, then directed, slightly changed, and extended (a second part was added) by Beckett for SDR in 1981. Quadrat 1+ II differs from the script entitled Quad (which we still may call a 'play-script' although it was in fact written for television) in that it exists only as a 'moving picture.' A play-script is no longer the basis of the film, for Quadrat consists of written images; the camera is now the 'writing instrument.' This is certainly true for the second part of Quadrat, which was added by Beckett during the SDR television production at Stuttgart. Part I, to a great extent, still follows the 'play-script' (though even part I has cuts at the beginning and the end, so that we get the impression that Quadrat I is a sort of 'snapshot') in the sense of a short sequence of 'moving pictures' representing a small part of a longer-Iasting activity. This impression would be impossible to convey by Quad as stage play (even if it also had cuts). Quadrat I does not show the complete four "courses" of the four "players" named 1, 2, 3 and 4, leading 1 from A to C, etc. Quadrat I shows 1, 2, 3 and 4 in coloured gowns: white, yellow, blue and red, as the 'play-script' indicates; but it does not begin, as the script would have it, with course 1 of player 1. It beg ins in the middle 0/ the action by showing two players (the last parts of the "4th series"); we are made to believe that the film has cut out apart of a continuous and endless or 'eternal' movement; and Quadrat I ends in the middle of the action of four players (though in the script we can read: "Without interruption begin repeat and fade out on 1 pacing alone").3 In the TV realization the percussionists on the stage disappear and the black curtains become invisible. They merge with the black background framing the quadrangle. The square loses its character of being placed on the stage. It looks likea thin plane suspended in the air, a plane in

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