Customer Reviews

Breath and Other Short Plays

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Breath is the testing ground on the merit not only of Samuel Beckett, but modern drama as a whole. When people (like my mother) want to sneer at either, they refer to 'Breath', a 45 second play of a heap of rubbish, a light fading up and out, two cries and a breath, breathing in and out. You could argue that the linking of the inhaling and exhaling breath with the lighting offers a profound comment on the nature of theatre. You might say that this linking of breathing, rubbish, crying, light and darkness is an allegory for life, although not as beautiful a one as the opening paragraph of Nabokov's 'Speak Memory' which uses similar terms. You could, but you'd just look pretentious and ridiculous.

It is important to remember, however, that 'Breath' was conceived as a joke. The critic Kenneth Tynan was putting on his infamous, erotic revue 'Oh Calcutta' and asked Beckett for a contribution. The dramatist responded with a comically literal interpretation of heavy breathing, a sardonic comment on the revue to follow. However, the biter was bit, as Tynan added unclad ladies to the rubbish to Beckett's fury (see James Knowlson's Beckett biography, 'Damned to Fame'). Serves him right!