Beckett, Samuel - Xerxes Mehta (essay date autumn 1996)
Xerxes Mehta (essay date autumn 1996)
SOURCE: Mehta, Xerxes. “Shapes of Suffering: Image/Narrative/Impromptu in Beckett's Ohio Impromptu.” Journal of Beckett Studies 6, no. 1 (autumn 1996): 97-118.
[In the following essay, Mehta examines Ohio Impromptu as a modernist interpretation of the classic theatrical impromptu form.]
Beckett called his play an impromptu.1 An impromptu in the theatre is a quite specific form in which the playwright—usually through the vehicle of a play within a play—attacks his critics, defends his practice, and, traditionally, lets his audience in on a few of the tricks and all of the tribulations of his profession. Molière's L'Impromptu de Versailles, for example, lays before us what appears to be a rather chaotic attempt to put together a play for Louis XIV. The performance is at hand, the play isn't written yet, the playwright's in extreme anxiety, and his actors not only...
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