UMBC Department of theatre: Maryland Stage Company-"Review" of Beckett's "Play"

2000
Play, That Time, and Ohio Impromptu
by Samuel Beckett
All plays directed by Xerxes Mehta

“ ‘ A Director staging Beckett is, although committed to the prescriptions, rather free,’ notes the American director, Xerxes Mehta, also the president-elect of the International Beckett Society. His interpretation with the Maryland Stage Company of three one act plays (Play, That Time and Ohio Impromptu) was with out a doubt the high point of the festival thus far: chilling terror of form yet a soft actor’s touch. Marek Kedzierski, a polish director and co-director of the festival, called these hard core Beckett drills the Americans were performing ‘High Tech-Purgatory.’ Mehta’s interpretation of Play, which deals with the tortures of jealousy, is cool, funny and very fast. The three faces of the characters (two women and one man), placed in human-sized urns, are carved out of the total darkness of the stage, by cold, white light. The spotlights cue the delivery of lines at great speeds and the manic repetition of everlasting fresh pain….Mehta and company succeed at a frighteningly fascinating radicalization. Next to Play, The Maryland Stage Company performed an enchanting version of Beckett’s most beautiful, most tender, yet saddest play Ohio Impromptu. Anyone who missed these performances and who loves theatre should consider jetting to Baltimore, Maryland to see these astounding theatre artists on home turf.”
Peter Laudenbach, Berliner Tagesspiegel (2000)

“As a long time follower of productions of Samuel Becket’s plays throughout Europe and the United States, I don’t normally go to Beckett festivals expecting much that is fresh or eye-opening. The Maryland Stage Company productions of Samuel Beckett’s Play, That Time and Ohio Impromptu, directed by Xerxes Mehta, however, were standout achievements in the l0-day festival ‘Beckett in Berlin 2000. All were jewels of precision and perception, shedding more substantial light on Beckett’s humor, poetry and rigorous theatrical means than any of the other productions (many by famous Beckett specialists) … The Maryland Stage Company’s work should be considered in the first rank of Beckett performance …”
Jonathan Kalb, Associate Professor of Theater at Hunter College, City University of New York. (2000)

“Amid the rich and diverse theater and discussion offered at the seven day symposium and fortnight-long theater festival dubbed ‘Beckett in Berlin 2000’ in September of 2000, a pair of productions in what may be Samuel Beckett’s most technically demanding theater work, Play, stole the show. The first was Xerxes Mehta’s staging at the Akademie der Kunste on l8 September with Wendy Salkind, Peggy Yates, and Bill Largess. It was so stunning an achievement…. Mehta’s production of Play made no concession on the speed of delivery, no concession on the da capo, and so may be the first English language production to get the details right and thus to allow the full dramatic impact of this play to come through. It is testimony, yet again, that staging Beckett Beckett’s way, and getting it right, down to the finest details, produces an extraordinary evening of theatre.”
S.E. Gontarski, Journal of Beckett Studies (2000)

Sources:
http://www.umbc.edu/theatre/msc_productions.html

Video of "Play"

Filming "Play"

Anthony Minghella recalls filming Play. He descrbes that his thinking, aspirations, and even his handwritng was defined by Beckett. Play was actually the first play he ever directed in the theatre. Minghella writes, " In a novel, the reader can fully experience the author's intention of reading, but with a play or screenplay, a core element of the dramatist's art comes from the manipulation of time and space." He ends the article by saying," Everybody who loves Beckett will say the same thing: no matter how miserable or dark or cruel it appears, his work is also profoundly unifting. It's honest, naked, leavened with mischief. And full of pitty."

Sources:
Minghella, Anthony. "Play it Again, Sam". New Statesman; 3/20/2006, Vol. 135 Issue 4784, p40-42, 3p, 1 color, 1 bw

Publication Info and Observations of Beckett's "Play"

Samuel Beckett's Play was written in English in late 1962-63. First Published in German, as Spiel, in Theatre Heute (July 1963). First published in English by Faber abd Faber, London, in 1964. First performance was of Spiel, translated by Erika and Elmar Tophoven, at the Ulmer Theatre, Ulm-Donau, on 14 June 1963. First performed in Britian by the National Theatre Company at the Old Vic Theatre, London, on 7 April 1964.

Something to note about Play would be the scoring of his text. For example the characters speak alone, in unison, and at times simulatiously. Another thing is that there is very minimal puncuation through out the dialog and the use of hyphens shows how fast-pasted this play is. Finally, something else that makes this play unique is that the entire play is repeated!

Sources:

http://www.drama21c.net/text/play.htm

Samuel Beckett

Samuel Beckett (1906–89) was an Irish playwright and novelist. Beckett is considered one of the most influential writers of the 20th-century, Beckett wrote in both French and English. He emigrated to Paris in the 1920s and became an assistant to James Joyce. His first novel was Murphy (1938). Beckett's reputation is based largely on three full-length plays - Waiting for Godot (1952), Endgame (1957), and Happy Days (1961) - which explore notions of suffering, paralysis and endurance. His work is often linked to the Theatre of the Absurd with its repetitive, inventive language and obsession with futility and meaninglessness. He was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in literature.

Beckett had a difficult relationship with his mother, his struggle to establish himself as a writer against her determination that he should enter the family business (quantity surveying). Bouts of heavy drinking, various ailments and illnesses, probably psychosomatic in origin, solitary travels between Germany, France, and Ireland, and ‘two bad years’ ( 1933 –5 ) in London, during which Beckett made several abortive ventures into literary journalism and underwent psychoanalysis.

Sources:

"Beckett, Samuel" World Encyclopedia. Philip's, 2008. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Central Washington University. 28 May 2009

Alan Jenkins

"Beckett, Samuel (Barclay)" The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English. Ian Hamilton. Oxford University Press, 1996. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Central Washington University. 28 May 2009