Nacht und Träume (play)
Encyclopedia
Nacht und Träume is the last television play written and directed by Samuel Beckett
. It was written in English (mid-1982) for Süddeutscher Rundfunk
, recorded in October 1982 and broadcast on 19 May 1983 where it attracted “an audience of two million viewers.” The mime artist
Helfrid Foron playing both parts.
It was published by Faber in Collected Shorter Plays in 1984. Originally entitled Nachtstück (Night Piece), it is a wordless play, the only sound that of a male voice humming, then singing, from the last seven bars of Schubert’s
lied
Nacht und Träume
, words by Matthäus Casimir von Collin: “Holde Träume, kehret wieder!” (“Sweet dreams, come back”). Schubert was a composer much loved by Beckett – “the composer who spoke most to him … whom he considered a friend in suffering” – and this lied was one of the author’s favourites.
James Knowlson, in his biography of Beckett, states that the actual text used however was a slightly modified version by Heinrich Joseph von Collin
, Matthäus’s brother.
The action begins with a dreamer sitting alone in a dark empty room; his hands are resting on the table before him. He is on the far left of the screen and we are presented with his right profile. A male voice hums the last seven bars of the Schubert lied. Then we hear the same section sung, the man rests his head on his hands and the light fades until the words “Holde Träume” whereupon it fades up on the man’s dreamt self who is seated on an invisible podium four feet higher and well to the right of him. We see his left profile, a mirror image of his waking self. His is bathed in what Beckett describes as a “kinder light.” The dreamer is still faintly visible throughout though.
A left hand appears out of the darkness and gently rests on B. As the man raises his head it withdraws. The right appears with a cup from which B drinks. It vanishes and then reappears to gently wipe his brow with a cloth. Then it disappears again. B raises his head to gaze upon the invisible face and holds out his right hand, palm upward. The right hand returns and rests on B’s right hand. He looks at the two hands together and adds his left hand. Together the three hands sink to the table and B rests his head on them. Finally the left hand comes out of the darkness and rests gently on his head.
The dream fades as A awakens but when the music is replayed the sequence is replayed, in close-up and slower.
Afterwards the camera withdraws leaving us with an image of a “recovering” A before the light fades away completely.
The play finds its origin in Beckett’s fascination with Durer’s
famous etching
of praying hands, a reproduction of which had hung in his room at Cooldrinagh as a child, however “the dark, empty room with its rectangle of light and its black-coated figure hunched over the table, resembled a schematised seventeenth century Dutch painting
even more explicitly that Ohio Impromptu
.”.
Beckett insisted to Dr Müller-Freinfels that “the sex of the hands must remain uncertain. One of our numerous teasers”. He did, however concede to James Knowlson that these “sexless hands … might perhaps be a boy’s hands”. In the end, practicality demanded that he opt for female hands with the proviso, “Large but female. As more conceivably male that male conceivably female.”
“Beckett never endorses a belief in salvation from, or redemption for, suffering. But the need for some temporary comfort from suffering becomes acute in his late work, especially in the work for television.” The helping hand is an image of consolation. It suggests a kind of benediction
. In ritualistic and sacrament
al fashion the blessed shade offers him first a cup from which he drinks and then gently wipes his brow with a cloth.
“The screen layout calls to mind certain religious paintings where a vision often appears in a top corner of the canvas, normally the Virgin Mary
, Christ
ascended in his glory or a ministering angel
. The chalice
, cloth and comforting hand are similarly images commonly found in religious paintings.” Beckett’s cameraman, Jim Lewis said that:
“The play could have been sentimental, even maudlin. The mysterious quality of the action, the beauty of the singing … and the specificity of the repeated, almost ritualistic patterns avoid this. What, on the printed page, seems a very slight piece, acquires on the screen a strange, haunting beauty.” One has to assume, using the same logic as Beckett did with Quad II, that the dream/memory/fantasy is winding down and that, if it was to receive a third run through, it would be slower again suggesting that it is fading away. Perhaps even now it is no longer accessible consciously, only via the unconscious. “In Beckett’s production for German television a central door, not mentioned in the text, was shown in the shots of A, disappearing in the shots of B, as though A had entered the world of B through the door of memory.”
But why use such Judeo-Christocentric imagery when so much of his more famous work revolves around life in a godless universe? As he conceded to Colin Duckworth, “Christianity is a mythology with which I am perfectly familiar, so I naturally use it”. One might imagine Beckett appending the same disclaimer he applied to Berkeley’s
philosophy in Film
: “No truth value attaches to above, regarded as of merely structural and dramatic convenience”
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
. It was written in English (mid-1982) for Süddeutscher Rundfunk
Süddeutscher Rundfunk
The Süddeutscher Rundfunk was a German radio and television station operating in the northern part of the state of Baden-Württemberg. It existed from 1949 to 1998, when it was merged with the then Südwestfunk to form the Südwestrundfunk....
, recorded in October 1982 and broadcast on 19 May 1983 where it attracted “an audience of two million viewers.” The mime artist
Mime artist
A mime artist is someone who uses mime as a theatrical medium or as a performance art, involving miming, or the acting out a story through body motions, without use of speech. In earlier times, in English, such a performer was referred to as a mummer...
Helfrid Foron playing both parts.
It was published by Faber in Collected Shorter Plays in 1984. Originally entitled Nachtstück (Night Piece), it is a wordless play, the only sound that of a male voice humming, then singing, from the last seven bars of Schubert’s
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
lied
Lied
is a German word literally meaning "song", usually used to describe romantic songs setting German poems of reasonably high literary aspirations, especially during the nineteenth century, beginning with Carl Loewe, Heinrich Marschner, and Franz Schubert and culminating with Hugo Wolf...
Nacht und Träume
Nacht und Träume
Nacht und Träume is a lied for voice and piano by Franz Schubert, published in 1825 off of a text by Matthäus von Collin. In Otto Erich Deutsch's catalogue of Schubert's works, it is D...
, words by Matthäus Casimir von Collin: “Holde Träume, kehret wieder!” (“Sweet dreams, come back”). Schubert was a composer much loved by Beckett – “the composer who spoke most to him … whom he considered a friend in suffering” – and this lied was one of the author’s favourites.
James Knowlson, in his biography of Beckett, states that the actual text used however was a slightly modified version by Heinrich Joseph von Collin
Heinrich Joseph von Collin
Heinrich Joseph von Collin , Austrian dramatist, was born in Vienna, on 26 December 1771. He received a legal education and entered the Austrian ministry of finance where he found speedy promotion. In 1805 and in 1809, when Austria was under the heel of Napoleon, Collin was entrusted with important...
, Matthäus’s brother.
Synopsis
Beckett lists five elements that make up the play: evening light, the dreamer (A), his dreamt self (B), a pair of dreamt hands and the last seven bars of Schubert’s lied. It reads more like a formula or a list of ingredients than a cast.The action begins with a dreamer sitting alone in a dark empty room; his hands are resting on the table before him. He is on the far left of the screen and we are presented with his right profile. A male voice hums the last seven bars of the Schubert lied. Then we hear the same section sung, the man rests his head on his hands and the light fades until the words “Holde Träume” whereupon it fades up on the man’s dreamt self who is seated on an invisible podium four feet higher and well to the right of him. We see his left profile, a mirror image of his waking self. His is bathed in what Beckett describes as a “kinder light.” The dreamer is still faintly visible throughout though.
A left hand appears out of the darkness and gently rests on B. As the man raises his head it withdraws. The right appears with a cup from which B drinks. It vanishes and then reappears to gently wipe his brow with a cloth. Then it disappears again. B raises his head to gaze upon the invisible face and holds out his right hand, palm upward. The right hand returns and rests on B’s right hand. He looks at the two hands together and adds his left hand. Together the three hands sink to the table and B rests his head on them. Finally the left hand comes out of the darkness and rests gently on his head.
The dream fades as A awakens but when the music is replayed the sequence is replayed, in close-up and slower.
Afterwards the camera withdraws leaving us with an image of a “recovering” A before the light fades away completely.
Interpretation
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...
famous etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
of praying hands, a reproduction of which had hung in his room at Cooldrinagh as a child, however “the dark, empty room with its rectangle of light and its black-coated figure hunched over the table, resembled a schematised seventeenth century Dutch painting
Dutch Golden Age painting
Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history generally spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years War for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republic was the most prosperous nation in Europe, and led European trade,...
even more explicitly that Ohio Impromptu
Ohio Impromptu
Ohio Impromptu is a “playlet” by Samuel Beckett.Written in English in 1980, it began as a favour to S.E. Gontarski, who requested a dramatic piece to be performed at an academic symposium in Columbus, Ohio in honour of Beckett’s seventy-fifth birthday. Beckett was uncomfortable writing to order and...
.”.
Beckett insisted to Dr Müller-Freinfels that “the sex of the hands must remain uncertain. One of our numerous teasers”. He did, however concede to James Knowlson that these “sexless hands … might perhaps be a boy’s hands”. In the end, practicality demanded that he opt for female hands with the proviso, “Large but female. As more conceivably male that male conceivably female.”
“Beckett never endorses a belief in salvation from, or redemption for, suffering. But the need for some temporary comfort from suffering becomes acute in his late work, especially in the work for television.” The helping hand is an image of consolation. It suggests a kind of benediction
Benediction
A benediction is a short invocation for divine help, blessing and guidance, usually at the end of worship service.-Judaism:...
. In ritualistic and sacrament
Sacrament
A sacrament is a sacred rite recognized as of particular importance and significance. There are various views on the existence and meaning of such rites.-General definitions and terms:...
al fashion the blessed shade offers him first a cup from which he drinks and then gently wipes his brow with a cloth.
“The screen layout calls to mind certain religious paintings where a vision often appears in a top corner of the canvas, normally the Virgin Mary
Mary (mother of Jesus)
Mary , commonly referred to as "Saint Mary", "Mother Mary", the "Virgin Mary", the "Blessed Virgin Mary", or "Mary, Mother of God", was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee...
, Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
ascended in his glory or a ministering angel
Angel
Angels are mythical beings often depicted as messengers of God in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles along with the Quran. The English word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, a translation of in the Hebrew Bible ; a similar term, ملائكة , is used in the Qur'an...
. The chalice
Chalice (cup)
A chalice is a goblet or footed cup intended to hold a drink. In general religious terms, it is intended for drinking during a ceremony.-Christian:...
, cloth and comforting hand are similarly images commonly found in religious paintings.” Beckett’s cameraman, Jim Lewis said that:
- “… at the moment when the drops of perspiration are wiped from the brow of the character, Beckett simply said that the cloth alluded to the veilVeil of VeronicaThe Veil of Veronica, or Sudarium , often called simply "The Veronica" and known in Italian as the Volto Santo or Holy Face is a Catholic relic, which, according to legend, bears the likeness of the Face of Jesus not made by human hand The Veil of Veronica, or Sudarium (Latin for sweat-cloth),...
that VeronicaSaint VeronicaSaint Veronica or Berenice, according to the "Acta Sanctorum" published by the Bollandists , was a pious woman of Jerusalem who, moved with pity as Jesus carried his cross to Golgotha, gave him her veil that he might wipe his forehead...
used to wipe the brow of Jesus on the Way of the CrossStations of the CrossStations of the Cross refers to the depiction of the final hours of Jesus, and the devotion commemorating the Passion. The tradition as chapel devotion began with St...
. The imprint of Christ’s face remains on the cloth.”
“The play could have been sentimental, even maudlin. The mysterious quality of the action, the beauty of the singing … and the specificity of the repeated, almost ritualistic patterns avoid this. What, on the printed page, seems a very slight piece, acquires on the screen a strange, haunting beauty.” One has to assume, using the same logic as Beckett did with Quad II, that the dream/memory/fantasy is winding down and that, if it was to receive a third run through, it would be slower again suggesting that it is fading away. Perhaps even now it is no longer accessible consciously, only via the unconscious. “In Beckett’s production for German television a central door, not mentioned in the text, was shown in the shots of A, disappearing in the shots of B, as though A had entered the world of B through the door of memory.”
But why use such Judeo-Christocentric imagery when so much of his more famous work revolves around life in a godless universe? As he conceded to Colin Duckworth, “Christianity is a mythology with which I am perfectly familiar, so I naturally use it”. One might imagine Beckett appending the same disclaimer he applied to Berkeley’s
George Berkeley
George Berkeley , also known as Bishop Berkeley , was an Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immaterialism"...
philosophy in Film
Film (film)
Film is a film written by Samuel Beckett, his only screenplay. It was commissioned by Barney Rosset of Grove Press. Writing began on 5 April 1963 with a first draft completed within four days. A second draft was produced by 22 May and a forty-leaf shooting script followed thereafter...
: “No truth value attaches to above, regarded as of merely structural and dramatic convenience”