Three Plays: Ohio Impromptu Catastrophe What Where (Paperback)

by Samuel Beckett (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 59 pages
• Publisher: Grove Pr (September 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802151167
• ISBN-13: 978-0802151162
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,158,882 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #100 in

  Books > Literature & Fiction > Authors, A-Z > ( B ) > Beckett, Samuel

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Three very different examples of Beckett's later work., February 7, 2001

By	darragh o'donoghue (dublin, ireland) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Veering dangerously close to self-parody, 'Ohio Impromptu' is probably the most beautiful and least difficult of Beckett's last works. It tells the story of a black-clad Reader who reads a story to a silent black-clad Listener, about a grieving man who has lost his lover, who sends him a man to comfort him, and who does so by reading to him...As a work about loss and grief it is unsurpassed even in Beckett's work, and its description of lonely walks around Paris and Shades visiting from the dead are haunting, while the dutiful formal self-reflexivity does no real damage to the sentimentality.

'Catastrophe' is considered Beckett's only political play (I always thought 'Godot' was pretty political), written in support of Vaclav Havel in the early 80s when he was a jailed dissident playwright. As politics, it is rather obvious and banal, but it also works as a play about the theatre, about the power struggle that is life and the usual 'universal' stuff.

'What Where' is one of the late pattern plays, where four characters perform a mime which is explained by one of them through megaphone. Often taken as another political parable, this time about torture and confession in a system where truth cannot exist, its inspiration in Schubert's song-cycle 'Winterreisse' gives it a more human force.

4.0 out of 5 stars Focusing on the "What" and the "Where.", March 27, 2003

By	Robert Obrien "book book bird book" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Beckett's drama "What Where" is another example of a disorganized world where the only two certainties are suffering and uncertainty. Ample readings of the terse drama only serves as a catalyst for increased suffering and uncertainty in the reader. It never becomes clear whether the play is a mime, a schizophrenic episode, a parody, or a dream. The drama's brevity leads us scrambling for details that are intentionally omitted. For example, how do the stage directions relate directly to the play? Moreover, who is Bam torturing? Himself? While a deep understaning of "the absurd" and existentialism may help the reader unravel some of the drama's mysteries, such an understaning is unlikely to yield any discernible truth.

4.0 out of 5 stars Mona Lisa Smile, January 21, 2001

By A Customer

Ohio Impromptu is one of those rare plays which brightens your day yet blackens it at the same time. The language is painfully beautiful and is play i would love to see performed. From reading the text there is a warped sense of tension but warmth at the same time. I read this many times upon purchasing it and it has the wonderful ability to paint Mona Lisa style smile across my face each time i do. This is one of my favourite plays, by an excellent author.