Quad (play)

:"For other uses of the term, see Quad."
Samuel Beckett’s "Quad" was written in 1981 and first appeared in print in 1984 (Faber and Faber) where the work is described as “ [a] piece for four players, light and percussion” [Beckett, S., "Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett" (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 291] and has also been called a “ballet for four people.” [Ackerley, C. J. and Gontarski, S. E., (Eds.) "The Faber Companion to Samuel Beckett", (London: Faber and Faber, 2006), p 472] It resembles something the shape-theatre ensemble Mummenschanz might have conceived, a frantic mime. The only thing in the Beckett canon that is at all similar is the short mime at the beginning of "What Where".

The play was first transmitted by the Süddeutscher Rundfunk in Germany on 8th October 1981 – as "Quadrat 1 + 2". Beckett himself directed (“assisted by Bruno Voges”). [Pountney, R., "Theatre of Shadows: Samuel Beckett’s Drama" 1956-1976 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1988), p 207] The four performers, all “members of the Stuttgart Preparatory Ballet School”, [Bryden, M., ‘Dancing Genders’ in "The Savage Eye / L'Oeil Fauve : New Essays on Beckett's Television Plays" (Amsterdam; Atlanta, GA:Rodopi, 1995) (SBT; 4), p 110] were, Helfried Foron, Juerg Hummel, Vlaudia Knujpfer and Susanne Rehe. The same performance was rebroadcast on 16th December 1982, by BBC Two.

: "Quad" has a musical structure. It is a kind of canon or catch - a mysterious square dance. Four hooded figures move along the sides of the square. Each has his own particular itinerary. A pattern emerges and collisions are just avoided" ("Radio Times"). [Quoted on the [http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/326964 BFI website entry] for this play.]

Background

As far back as 1963 Beckett had thought of creating a geometrical mime. He tried to write a piece for Jack MacGowran (generally referred to as "J. M. Mime") but abandoned it “in the absence of all inner need.” [Knowlson, J., "Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett" (London: Bloomsbury, 1996), p 505]

“Beckett’s initial conception … was to have [a pair] of characters walking along Quadrants in all possible paths starting from O (a central origin) and returning to O. But in its final realization almost twenty years later, the mime begins and ends with the void, an empty quad, and travellers deflect their steps away from O.” [Brienza, S. D., ‘Perilous Journeys on Beckett’s Stages’ in Burkman, K. H., (Ed.) "Myth and Ritual in the Plays of Samuel Beckett" (London and Toronto: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1987), p 47]

The discarded work was “intended as a mime for two players (son and father or mother) who are described as naked under their coats. The stage is plotted out in a square, the four corners of which (lettered A-D) are to be marked either by two boots and two hats or by four boots, recalling the boots and hat found onstage in "Godot";” [Pountney, R., "Theatre of Shadows: Samuel Beckett’s Drama" 1956-1976 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1988), p 12] the mid-points were lettered E-G, and the centre, O.

The idea goes back even further however, “indeed "Quad" may be regarded as the fulfilment onstage of the goal he had set himself in 1937 in the letter to Axel Kaun, [The letter, generally known as the “German Letter,” is reprinted in its original German in "Disjecta: Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragment", (London: Calderbooks, 1983) pp 51-54] the achieving of an entirely new means of expression through the elimination of language.” [Pountney, R., "Theatre of Shadows: Samuel Beckett’s Drama" 1956-1976 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1988), p 10]

ynopsis

"Quad I"

“"Quad" is based on a geometrical figure and on permutations of regular movements. First one, then two, then three, then four figures, dancers or mime artistes, dressed in coloured djellabas [This recalls the character ‘Auditor’ in "Not I".] (white, yellow, blue and red) appear one after another to scurry along the sides and across the diagonals of a square, shuffling in strict rhythm to a rapid percussion beat. Each figure then departs in the order in which he appeared, leaving another to recommence the sequence … Strikingly all of them avoid the centre which is clearly visible in the middle of the square.” [Knowlson, J., "Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett" (London: Bloomsbury, 1996), p 673]

The four series of six stages each produce a total of twenty-four stages suggesting, as in "Lessness", the measurement of time.

According to the script each character was to be unique in a number of ways. Apart from the colour of the outfit, they were to be “ [a] s alike in build as possible. Short and slight for preference … Adolescents a possibility. Sex indifferent.” [Beckett, S., "Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett" (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 293] That said, each player’s footsteps were to be distinctive, each was to be accompanied by their own musical instrument and illuminated by a light, the same colour as their outfit. For technical reasons, in the original broadcast, white light was used. To help the performers cope with the rhythmic chaos “ [t] hey wore headphones under their hoods, so they could hear the percussion beats.” [Knowlson, J., "Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett" (London: Bloomsbury, 1996), p 674]

Most unusually there is an element of chance in this piece in that Beckett does not indicate how the footsteps should differ nor which instruments should be used other than they should be percussive (“say drum, gong, triangle, wood block” [Beckett, S., "Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett" (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 293] ), he doesn’t even specify a required sequence for the colours. The four percussionists also have some freedom in how they play enabling the footsteps to be able to be heard on their own at intervals. Of course, as you would expect, the four instruments Beckett suggests have quite different timbres.

It is hard not to think of the work of John Cage when considering this piece though the two men’s approach to work could hardly be different: Beckett argues that it is “the shape” [Beckett told Harold Hobson in 1956: "I am interested in the shape of ideas even if I do not believe in them. There is a wonderful sentence in Augustine. I wish I could remember the Latin. It is even finer in Latin than in English. `Do not despair; one of the thieves was saved. Do not presume; one of the thieves was damned.' That sentence has a wonderful shape. It is the shape that matters."] that matters in his work whereas Cage evades conventional form in order to reveal “a harmony to which many are unaccustomed.” [Cage, J., quoted in Zurbrugg, N., "Critical Vices: The Myths of Post-modern Theory" (Amsterdam: G+B Arts International, 2000), p 106] That said, it is not unimaginable that Beckett might have come up with a version of "4′33″" if Cage hadn’t thought of it first.

There are no cuts, just one fixed long take. Beckett had originally calculated its length at 25 minutes but, in reality, the whole set was completed in nine-an-a-half minutes.

"Quad II"

“Near the end of the taping, Beckett created what amounted to an unplanned second act for the play. When he saw the colour production of "Quad " rebroadcast on a black and white monitor, he decided instantly to create "Quad II". [As with "Film"] Beckett's printed text (in any language) was, however, never revised to acknowledge this remarkable revision of the work's fundamental structure. No printed version of the play bears the title of the production, and so no accurate version, one that includes Beckett's revisions, exists in print. Beckett's own videotaped German production, then, remains the only ‘final’ text for "Quad".” [Gontarski, S.E., ‘ [http://iupjournals.org/jml/mod22-1.html Revising Himself: Performance as Text in Samuel Beckett's Theatre] ’ in "Journal of Modern Literature", Volume 22, Number 1 ]

The story goes that, watching technicians testing the image quality of "Quad", the most hectic and raucous piece that Beckett ever wrote, for reception by monochrome receivers, and running the tape through in slow motion and in black and white, Beckett suddenly exclaimed: `My God, it's a hundred thousand years later!' [Esslin, M., ‘Towards the Zero of Language’ in (Eds.) Acheson, J. and Arthur, K., "Beckett’s Later Fiction and Drama", (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1987), p 44] Seeing the hectic bustle of the performance he had already recorded transformed into the slow, dim shuffle, suggested to Beckett a fast-forward to a time when everything will have nearly gone. [Connor, S., "Slow Going", first presented at the "Critical Beckett" conference organised by the School of French Studies of the University of Birmingham, 26th September 1998]

“The fast percussion beats were … removed and the only sounds that were heard were the slower, shuffling steps of the weary figures and, almost inaudibly, the tick of a metronome.” [Knowlson, J., "Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett" (London: Bloomsbury, 1996), p 674] The performers now wore identical robes and moved at half the pace. The new section, called "Quad II", lasts four minutes as it only allows for one series of movements, compared to the four in "Quad I".

“The second version was a masterstroke, a second act to dramatize the entropy of the motion. And, since the figures always turn left, not only at the centre but at all the corners also, the pattern is that of the damned in the "Inferno". "Quad" is indeed a sinister piece.” [Gontarski, S. E., ‘ [http://www.english.fsu.edu/jobs/num09/Num9Gontarski%20Review.htm Quad I & II: Beckett’s sinister mime(s)] ’ in "Journal of Beckett Studies", No 9, Spring 1983, pp 137,138 ]

The director Alan Schneider wrote to Beckett (13th Nov 1981) after viewing the television programme several times: “much moved, especially by the slower section. Want to work on that as a stage piece with some of my students here – no audience – would you mind?” ["No Author Better Served: The Correspondence of Samuel Beckett and Alan Schneider" (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), p 415] Beckett replied (20th Nov 1981): “Can’t see "Quad" on stage. But by all means have a go.” ["No Author Better Served: The Correspondence of Samuel Beckett and Alan Schneider" (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), p 416] Later (6th Feb 1982) he made a qualifying remark: “Quad can’t work on stage. But no doubt interesting for students, gymnastically.” ["No Author Better Served: The Correspondence of Samuel Beckett and Alan Schneider" (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), p 422] These are fascinating remarks considering the fact that Beckett takes no real advantage of the many televisual techniques available, no close-ups, freeze frames, pans, cuts, zooms, slow-motion shots or split screens – simply a fixed camera “far South of the circle, overlooking it” [Pountney, R., "Theatre of Shadows: Samuel Beckett’s Drama" 1956-1976 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1988), p 204] that might represent any member of a theatre-going audience.

Interpretation

“Modern works of art often call for prolonged continuous close attention if one is to appreciate them. The same is true of a gator basking in the sun on a mud bank in a swamp. Anything viewed makes demands.” [Ziff, P., ‘Anything Viewed’ in Feagin, S., and Maynard, P., (Eds.) "Aesthetics" (London: Oxford University Press, 1997), p 28]

The building blocks of "Quad" can be found in a number of Beckett’s other works:

“In "Play", there is a correlation between light and voice, and a "da capo" structure that forms an image of hell, but the voices of W1, W2 and M (an eternal triangle) do not follow a predictable sequence. In this respect, action and dialogue differs from that of "Come and Go", where it is shaped by the mathematical sequence, a series of ritual movements: as one character leaves, another moves up into the vacant centre.” [Ackerley, C., " [http://www2.uca.edu.ar/esp/sec-ffilosofia/esp/docs-institutos/lit-inglesa/mathem.pdf Samuel Beckett and Mathematics] ", p 18. (Originally published in "Cuadernos de literatura Inglesa y Norteamericana" (Buenos Aires) 3.1-2 (Mayo-Nov 1998), pp 77-102)] Both "Come and Go" and "Quad" trace shapes through highly patterned movements and interaction that mimic life through extreme abstraction. These works are the inner rhythms laid bare.” [Drew, E., ‘ [http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/rodopi/sbta/2002/00000011/00000001/art00034 Head To Footsteps: “Fundamental sounds” in “dread nay” and “Roundelay”] ’ in Moorjani, A. and Veit, C., (Eds.) "Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd'hui, Samuel Beckett: Endlessness in the Year 2000" (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001), p 292] “Geometrical structures of light and darkness shape the stage settings of "Ghost Trio", and "...but the clouds..."; while in "Breath" and "Not I" the light is arithmetical, changing in time. "Quad" integrates both forms: the quad is set out geometrically, but the movements of the players defined arithmetically, with absolute precision. Behind the dramaticule is a metaphor of coincidence, or meeting in time and space, and hence the ‘danger zone’ [Beckett, S., "Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett" (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 293] where this might happen.” [Ackerley, C., " [http://www2.uca.edu.ar/esp/sec-ffilosofia/esp/docs-institutos/lit-inglesa/mathem.pdf Samuel Beckett and Mathematics] ", p 18. (Originally published in "Cuadernos de literatura Inglesa y Norteamericana" (Buenos Aires) 3.1-2 (Mayo-Nov 1998), pp 77-102)] Even “the “perpetual separation and reunion of Vladimir and Estragon” [Knowlson, J. and McMillan, D., (Eds.) "The Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett", Vol 1 (London: Faber and Faber; New York: Grove P, 1993), p 102] which has been described as “a choreography of the void, a search for stepping-stones to best approach or avoid the other”, [Ross, C., ‘ [http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/rodopi/sbta/2002/00000011/00000001/art00010 Beckett’s Godot In Berlin: New Coordinates of the Void] ’ in Moorjani, A. and Veit, C., (Eds.) "Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd'hui, Samuel Beckett: Endlessness in the Year 2000" (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001), p 67] can be seen to anticipate "Quad", as can the fact that Act II covers the same ground as Act I in the same way that "Quad II" literally covers the same ground as "Quad I".

Why are these four pacing so? Martin Esslin believes they “are clearly engaged in a quest for an Other.” [Esslin, M., ‘Patterns of Rejection: Sex and Love in Beckett’s Universe’ in Ben-Zvi, L., (Ed.) "Women in Beckett: Performance and Critical Perspectives" (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992), p 66] He reads “the centre that the hooded wanderers have so fearfully to avoid is obviously the point at which real communication, a real ‘encounter,’ would be potentially possible but inevitably proves – by the very nature of existence itself – impossible. [Esslin, M., ‘Patterns of Rejection: Sex and Love in Beckett’s Universe’ in Ben-Zvi, L., (Ed.) "Women in Beckett: Performance and Critical Perspectives" (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992), pp 66.67]

Sidney Homan describes "Quad’s" world as a “faceless, emotionless one of the far future, a world where people are born, go through prescribed movements, fear non-being (E) even though their lives are meaningless, and then they disappear or die.” [Homan, S., "Filming Beckett’s Television Plays: A Director’s Experience" (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1992), p 28] This raises a philosophical question, one the writer Albert Camus tried to answer in his essay, "The Myth of Sisyphus": Face to face with the meaninglessness of existence, what keeps us from suicide? What stops any of the four players from simply hurling themselves into the “danger zone”? To a large extent, Camus suggests that our instinct for life is much stronger than our reasons for suicide: "We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking." [Camus, A., "The Myth of Sisyphus" (London: Penguin Books, 1975), p 15] We instinctively avoid facing the full consequences of the meaningless nature of life, through what Camus calls an "act of eluding." [See Eva Navratilova’s discussion of " [http://www.samuel-beckett.net/Absurdity.htm Beckett and Absurdity] ". Chapter 3 deals heavily with Camus’s essay.]

The following section from Camus’s essay could almost sum up both "Quad I" and "Quad II":

: ["Quad I"] "It happens that the stage-sets collapse. Rising, streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm-this path is easily followed most of the time. : ["Quad II"] But one day the ‘why’ arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement. ...Weariness comes at the end of the acts of a mechanical life, but at the same time it inaugurates the impulse of consciousness … What follows is the gradual return into the chain or it is the definitive awakening." [Camus, A., "The Myth of Sisyphus" (London: Penguin Books, 1975), p 19]

The ‘danger zone’ may not, of course, signify death but it would take an act of faith – or “an act of lucidity” [Camus, A., "The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays", translated by Justin O'Brien (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1967), p. 141. “Here, ‘lucidity,’ Camus' best synonym for knowledge, does not require self-consciousness. It is equivalent to ‘sure of his desires.’ Lucidity is the knowledge of life, which is confident of itself, not necessarily the knowledge of life, which is "correct" in some technical sense.” – Edward G. Lawry, [http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Lite/LiteLawr.htm Knowledge as Lucidity: "Summer in Algiers"] ] – to find out for sure. When Sidney Homan was rehearsing his version of "Quad", to learn more about the piece the players improvised, what one of the actors called “a real ending, something more than the final character’s just disappearing” [Homan, S., "Filming Beckett’s Television Plays: A Director’s Experience" (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1992), p 33] where the last character about the leave the stage, halts, turns, removes her hood and then, as if being beckoned by the centre, hesitantly makes her way there where the lights fade down on her.

If recourse to Beckett’s own attitude is necessary, it is well documented that Beckett favoured the mere physicality of his work over interpretative readings. With "Not I" he stated explicitly that he was not “unduly concerned with intelligibility. [He wanted] “the piece to work on the nerves of the audience, not its intellect.” [Beckett to Jessica Tandy. Quoted in Brater, E., ‘The “I” in Beckett’s "Not I"’ in "Twentieth Century Literature" 20, No 3, July 1974, p 200] With "Quad", there are no longer any ‘nasty words’ for that to be an issue. During filming Beckett “spoke to the SDR cameraman, Jim Lewis about the difficulty that he now had in writing down any words without having the intense feeling that they would inevitably be lies.” [Lewis, J., ‘Beckett et la caméra’ in "Review d’esthétique", hors série, 1990, pp 376,377. Quoted in Knowlson, J., "Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett" (London: Bloomsbury, 1996), p 672]

Rather than trying to make ‘sense’ of "Quad", it is perhaps better to consider the ‘sensation’ caused by "Quad". It presents us with the ‘meaning’ behind the words. The problem with meanings is that we’re used to having them wrapped up IN words. They are like masks behind expressionless masks. "Quad" exposes the mechanism underneath the actors’ actions; the clock’s face and hands have been removed and all we are left with are the exposed workings, which can be a thing of beauty in its own right, and, of course, makes perfect sense in itself.

“As Susan D. Brienza indicates, in … "Quad" the four characters rhythmically draw mandala pictures that reveal concentric circles and include four quadrants. The dancers’ counter-clockwise pacing evokes Jung’s patient’s leftward movement, which is equivalent to a progress towards the unconscious. They desperately attempt to achieve ‘centering’ and reinstate order and peace, to abolish the separation between the unconscious and the conscious mind.” [Brienza, S. D., ‘Perilous Journeys on Beckett’s Stages’ in Burkman, K. H., (Ed.) "Myth and Ritual in the Plays of Samuel Beckett" (London and Toronto: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1987), p 28-49. Referenced in Sion, I., ‘ [http://www.aber.ac.uk/cla/archive/sion.html The Shape of the Beckettian Self: Godot and the Jungian Mandala] ’ in "Consciousness, Literature and the Arts", Vol 7 No 1, April 2006 ]

“The avoidance of the centre is clearly a metaphor capable of wide interpretation, as with Winnie’s mound in "Happy Days". The small empty square … could suggest the flight from self, the ‘I’ Beckett’s characters so carefully avoid … The deliberate avoidance of contact with each other, though present in the same square of light, is also a familiar theme in Beckett, whose characters frequently choose isolation as with "Krapp" or the Listener in "That Time".” [Pountney, R., "Theatre of Shadows: Samuel Beckett’s Drama" 1956-1976 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1988), p 209]

Eckart Voigts-Virchow presents an interesting – and amusing – comparison between Beckett’s play and the 1990s BBC children’s TV show "Teletubbies":

: “Whereas the "Teletubbies" have presumably only just started to acquire the apparatus of human articulation (“Eh-oh!”) and are trapped in their progress for hundreds of episodes by the requirements of serialization, Beckett’s hooded figures totally relinquish expressiveness beyond their coloured gowns, leitmotiv percussion, and racecourse. They are defined by mere physical exertion. The "Quad" figures are probably an image of how the "Teletubbies" will behave when they are close to death and their belly monitors have long gone blank and become sightless windows.” [Voigts-Virchow. E., ‘ [http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/rodopi/sbta/2002/00000011/00000001/art00026 Quad I And Teletubbies or: ‘Aisthetic’ Panopticism versus Reading Beckett] ’ in Moorjani, A. and Veit, C., (Eds.) "Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd'hui, Samuel Beckett: Endlessness in the Year 2000" (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001), p 214]

“That there is a pun in ‘quad’ and ‘quod’ (slang for gaol) can hardly have escaped Beckett. Since one of his Paris apartments overlooked the Santé Prison, he must have been conscious of the rhythm of life as lived in a prison over a long period. With this in mind the players following their prescribed course of movements around a square could be seen as ‘doing time’ in the most literal sense of the term and exercising within the precise limits of the prison yard.” [Pountney, R., "Theatre of Shadows: Samuel Beckett’s Drama" 1956-1976 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1988), p 210]

Musical Interpretation

Pascal Dusapin has invoked or cited Beckett for a long time without ever having set his work to music. Dusapin's entire œuvre has been inspired by Beckett, and his scores carry traces of his passage. " [http://mac-texier.ircam.fr/textes/c00000031/n00004556/index.html Quad] ", for violin and ensemble, dedicated to Gilles Deleuze, one of the most renowned commentators on Beckett, begins with the exhaustion of possibilities, which is reminiscent of many of the writer's propositions.

References

External links

* [http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/quadrat/video/1/ "Quad I" video (Media Art Net)]
* [http://users.skynet.be/planktone/ward/qwat.ram "Quat"] - A dance performance based on "Quad" (Antwerp 1997), recreated in Glasgow, Scotland for [http://www.cryptic.org.uk/ Theatre Cryptic] at the "Beckett Time Festival" as a multimedia production for dancers, sound, video & graphics.