Rough for Radio I
Encyclopedia
Rough for Radio I is a short radio play by Samuel Beckett
, written in French in 1961 and first published in Minuit
5 in September 1973 as Esquisse radiophinique. Its first English publication as Sketch for Radio Play was in Stereo Headphones 7 (spring 1976). It first appeared under its current title in Ends and Odds (Grove 1976, Faber 1977).
“Plans for a BBC
production, with Humphrey Searle
providing the music, were made soon after the publication of the original French version but came to nothing and a later BBC proposal to produce the play without music was rejected by Beckett in the late 1970s. According to the Beckett estate the French version was produced by ORTF (Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française
) in 1962, although Beckett himself seems later to have forgotten about this production.”
A complete run of all Beckett’s radio plays was presented by RTÉ Radio 1
in 2006 to celebrate the centenary of the author’s birth; Rough for Radio I was broadcast on April 12th.
The work has also been produced on compact disc by the British pianist John Tilbury
who also speaks the part of ‘He’. It was recorded at Trinity College of Music
and Electronic Music Studio, Goldsmiths College, London
, in 2004/5 along with a version of Cascando, the music composed and performed by John Tilbury with electronic modulations
by Sebastian Lexer.
. She is under the impression that she is there on his invitation; he says not but nevertheless allows her enrty. He is civil, formal, his conversation phatic
He effects a faux-subservience with his continual use of “Madam
”, but takes no steps to make her stay comfortable, refusing to provide even “a little heat” or “a little light” but he doesn’t go so far as to forbid her squatting on the thick cushion she sees.
“[W]e experience a practiced talker at work in the female well-wisher, with her reliable memory and inventory of conversational 'gambits' at the ready. Despite her skill, she is stymied in her efforts to advance the conversation by the male protagonist
’s uncooperative obduracy.http://www.answers.com/topic/obduracy He refuses to accommodate her desire to establish a probing 'frame', to elicit the information that her curiosity craves.” Even when she expresses concern for how troubled he seems to her the man refuses, as Vladimir
would put it, to “return the ball.” He is a model of polite restraint, but why?
She has come, she informs him, to listen but then asks if she can “see them”. He says not but he does permit her to operate the two knobs that control the music and the words she has come to hear. “[I]s it live?” she wants to know. He doesn’t answer other than to instruct her how to control the sounds: “[You] must twist … To the right.” His subsequent answers indicate there are individuals behind the sounds, one producing words, the other music. Each is alone, isolated from the other and required to produce their respective sound continually without respite. The man says he can’t however describe their conditions for her. Both sounds are faint and “not together”. The woman wants them louder but the volume never varies while she is there.
Having heard as much as she needs she wants to know if Macgillycuddy likes what he hears. For once he opens up and confesses that “[i]t has become a need
” but admits nothing more. She readies to go, leaving him to his “needs” (a rather sardonic remark which he fails to counter). Before she exits, she asks a strange question: “Is that a Turkoman
?” Predictably the man ignores the question and goes to show her out. She takes a wrong turn and nearly walks into where they keep the “house garbage” implying that there are other locations that produce waste.
After she has left there is a long pause. The audience then hears the sound of two curtains being drawn evocative of those around a hospital bed.
The man picks up the telephone receiver and dials. We only hear his side of the following phone conversations. He asks the young lady who answers the phone – he refers to her as “Miss
” – to have the doctor call him back. He says that it’s urgent and waits impatiently for the phone to ring.
It is hard to believe this is the same man who was so proper with his woman visitor only a few lines earlier. Could this be a different point in time completely? Or were the curtains available all the time but were only closed while he attended to his unwelcome visitor?
He gets a return call but it’s only to inform him that they cannot locate the doctor. She rings off and he curses her: “Slut
!” His agitation builds. He’s beginning to panic.
The phone rings a second time. This time it may be the doctor who asks a number of pertinent questions to which the answers are, “they’re ending”, “this morning”, “she’s left me”, “they’re together” and “how could they meet?” The voice on the end of the phone tries to reassure him that “last … gasps” are all alike and then rings off telling him he’ll receive a visit in an hour. Macgillycuddy slams the phone down and curses again. This time he uses the word “Swine
!” suggestive of the fact that he has been talking to a different person, most likely a male.
A few moments later the phone rings one final time. He’s now told not to expect the doctor before noon the next day; he has two births (first gasps?) to attend to, one of which is breech
.
Music and Voice are then heard “[t]ogether, ending, breaking off together, resuming together more and more feebly” and then there is nothing.
After a long pause the man whispers, “Tomorrow … noon …”
“Beckett's play is a sort of quartet, a dialogue between a man, 'he', and a woman, 'she', interspersed by 'Music' and 'Voice'. 'Music' and 'Voice' are, we are led to believe, going on all the time; 'he' has two buttons, which allow him to listen in to them. Within the Beckett canon
Rough for Radio I is usually thought of as a preliminary exploration of the possibilities of radio, which would be explored more fully in Cascando and Words and Music
.” Barry McGovern
confirms that Beckett requested that “[t]he first Rough for Radio [was] not for production, the author feeling that Cascando had overtaken it, so to speak.”
In Rough for Radio I, the voice and the music are switched on and off as if they are being broadcast simultaneously on two separate radio stations. The same idea is presented in Cascando, but there the voice and the music do not seem to derive from an external source. Very much as the sound of the sea is in Embers
, in Radio I, as it is sometimes called, “[m]usic is not, as usual, merely functional (for instance, as intermezzo
, background music
or even worse, quite simply a creator of atmosphere), but […] is allotted an intrinsic role.”
But it is not simply a matter of turning a radio on and off. Voice and Music are characters in their own right. They occupy identical physical locations and conditions away from the “elicitor”,http://www.answers.com/elicitor as Merle Tönnies refers to him, and are apparently unaware of each other’s existence. Macgillycuddy acts as a master figure [who] “extorts words or sounds from his servants or victims, over whom he appears to have absolute control.”
Only he doesn’t. Like the living statue in Catastrophe
Voice and Music are capable of rebellion, even if that rebellion is simply to die and thus upset the status quo
. As the play moves on it becomes clear that they are slipping out of his control. In many ways it is “obvious that the master is as dependent on his servants as they are on him.”
Rather than the doctor being needed to attend to the ailing Voice and Music, Barry McGovern has put forward the thought that it is the man himself who is seeking medical attention and draws a parallel with the Bolton and Holloway story in Embers.
It has also been suggested that the knobs access a kind of sonar
, which could allow the visitor to monitor the two babies that are waiting to be born. There could be a personal connection too. He says everyone has left him. This might include a pregnant wife. The fact that Voice and Music occupy two identical spaces could represent wombs but there is too little to work with here to be sure.
composer
Richard Rijnvos
made for Nederlandse Omroep Stichting
(NOS) in 1991. Michael Gough
played ‘He’ and Joan Plowright
, ‘She’. The composer John Cage
was the voice with music by the Ives Ensemble.
In Raymond Gervais’s 2006 work Je suis venue pour écouter (I Have Come to Listen), extracts from Esquisse radiophonique as well as from his own translation of Rough for Radio II
appear on the cover of CD cases grouped together on the wall. Displayed in total darkness, the installation can only be discovered partially, with the use of a flashlight
.
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...
, written in French in 1961 and first published in Minuit
Les Éditions de Minuit
Les Éditions de Minuit is a French publishing house which has its origins in the French Resistance of World War II and still publishes books today.-History:...
5 in September 1973 as Esquisse radiophinique. Its first English publication as Sketch for Radio Play was in Stereo Headphones 7 (spring 1976). It first appeared under its current title in Ends and Odds (Grove 1976, Faber 1977).
“Plans for a BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
production, with Humphrey Searle
Humphrey Searle
Humphrey Searle was a British composer.-Biography:He was born in Oxford where he was a classics scholar before studying — somewhat hesitantly — with John Ireland at the Royal College of Music in London, after which he went to Vienna on a six month scholarship to become a private pupil of Anton...
providing the music, were made soon after the publication of the original French version but came to nothing and a later BBC proposal to produce the play without music was rejected by Beckett in the late 1970s. According to the Beckett estate the French version was produced by ORTF (Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française
Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française
The Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française was the national agency charged, between 1964 and 1974, with providing public radio and television in France.-Post World War II:...
) in 1962, although Beckett himself seems later to have forgotten about this production.”
A complete run of all Beckett’s radio plays was presented by RTÉ Radio 1
RTÉ Radio 1
RTÉ Radio 1 is the principal radio channel of Irish public-service broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann and is the direct descendant of Dublin radio station 2RN, which began broadcasting on a regular basis on 1 January 1926...
in 2006 to celebrate the centenary of the author’s birth; Rough for Radio I was broadcast on April 12th.
The work has also been produced on compact disc by the British pianist John Tilbury
John Tilbury
John Tilbury is a British pianist. He is considered one of the foremost interpreters of Morton Feldman's music, and since 1980 has been a member of the free improvisation group AMM.- Early life and education :...
who also speaks the part of ‘He’. It was recorded at Trinity College of Music
Trinity College of Music
Trinity College of Music is one of the London music conservatories, based in Greenwich. It is part of Trinity Laban.The conservatoire is inheritor of elegant riverside buildings of the former Greenwich Hospital, designed in part by Sir Christopher Wren...
and Electronic Music Studio, Goldsmiths College, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, in 2004/5 along with a version of Cascando, the music composed and performed by John Tilbury with electronic modulations
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
by Sebastian Lexer.
Synopsis
An unnamed woman visits a gloomy man, who we learn is called MacgillycuddyMacgillycuddy's Reeks
MacGillycuddy's Reeks is a mountain range in County Kerry, Republic of Ireland. Stretching slightly over , it includes the highest peaks in Ireland and the only peaks on the island that are over . The highest of these is Corrán Tuathail or Carrauntoohil , followed by Binn Chaorach and Cathair na...
. She is under the impression that she is there on his invitation; he says not but nevertheless allows her enrty. He is civil, formal, his conversation phatic
Phatic
In linguistics, a phatic expression is one whose only function is to perform a social task, as opposed to conveying information.-History:The term was coined by anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski in the early 1900s from Greek phanein: to show oneself, appear.-Understanding:The utterance of a...
He effects a faux-subservience with his continual use of “Madam
Madam
Madam, or madame, is a polite title used for women which, in English, is the equivalent of Mrs. or Ms., and is often found abbreviated as "ma'am", and less frequently as "ma'm". It is derived from the French madame, which means "my lady", the feminine form of lord; the plural of ma dame in this...
”, but takes no steps to make her stay comfortable, refusing to provide even “a little heat” or “a little light” but he doesn’t go so far as to forbid her squatting on the thick cushion she sees.
“[W]e experience a practiced talker at work in the female well-wisher, with her reliable memory and inventory of conversational 'gambits' at the ready. Despite her skill, she is stymied in her efforts to advance the conversation by the male protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
’s uncooperative obduracy.http://www.answers.com/topic/obduracy He refuses to accommodate her desire to establish a probing 'frame', to elicit the information that her curiosity craves.” Even when she expresses concern for how troubled he seems to her the man refuses, as Vladimir
Vladimir (Waiting for Godot)
Vladimir is one of the two main characters from Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot.- Personality :...
would put it, to “return the ball.” He is a model of polite restraint, but why?
She has come, she informs him, to listen but then asks if she can “see them”. He says not but he does permit her to operate the two knobs that control the music and the words she has come to hear. “[I]s it live?” she wants to know. He doesn’t answer other than to instruct her how to control the sounds: “[You] must twist … To the right.” His subsequent answers indicate there are individuals behind the sounds, one producing words, the other music. Each is alone, isolated from the other and required to produce their respective sound continually without respite. The man says he can’t however describe their conditions for her. Both sounds are faint and “not together”. The woman wants them louder but the volume never varies while she is there.
Having heard as much as she needs she wants to know if Macgillycuddy likes what he hears. For once he opens up and confesses that “[i]t has become a need
Need
A need is something that is necessary for organisms to live a healthy life. Needs are distinguished from wants because a deficiency would cause a clear negative outcome, such as dysfunction or death. Needs can be objective and physical, such as food, or they can be subjective and psychological,...
” but admits nothing more. She readies to go, leaving him to his “needs” (a rather sardonic remark which he fails to counter). Before she exits, she asks a strange question: “Is that a Turkoman
Turkmen people
The Turkmen are a Turkic people located primarily in the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and northeastern Iran. They speak the Turkmen language, which is classified as a part of the Western Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages family together with Turkish, Azerbaijani, Qashqai,...
?” Predictably the man ignores the question and goes to show her out. She takes a wrong turn and nearly walks into where they keep the “house garbage” implying that there are other locations that produce waste.
After she has left there is a long pause. The audience then hears the sound of two curtains being drawn evocative of those around a hospital bed.
The man picks up the telephone receiver and dials. We only hear his side of the following phone conversations. He asks the young lady who answers the phone – he refers to her as “Miss
Miss
Miss is an English language honorific traditionally used only for an unmarried woman . Originating in the 17th century, it is a contraction of mistress, which was used for all women. A period is not used to signify the contraction...
” – to have the doctor call him back. He says that it’s urgent and waits impatiently for the phone to ring.
It is hard to believe this is the same man who was so proper with his woman visitor only a few lines earlier. Could this be a different point in time completely? Or were the curtains available all the time but were only closed while he attended to his unwelcome visitor?
He gets a return call but it’s only to inform him that they cannot locate the doctor. She rings off and he curses her: “Slut
Slut
Slut or slattern is a pejorative term applied to an individual who is considered to have loose sexual morals or who is sexually promiscuous...
!” His agitation builds. He’s beginning to panic.
The phone rings a second time. This time it may be the doctor who asks a number of pertinent questions to which the answers are, “they’re ending”, “this morning”, “she’s left me”, “they’re together” and “how could they meet?” The voice on the end of the phone tries to reassure him that “last … gasps” are all alike and then rings off telling him he’ll receive a visit in an hour. Macgillycuddy slams the phone down and curses again. This time he uses the word “Swine
Cultural references to pigs
Pigs have inspired many idioms, and are frequently referenced in culture. They have become synonymous with several negative attributes, especially greed, gluttony, and uncleanliness, and these ascribed attributes have often led to critical comparisons between pigs and humans.-In religion:*In Nordic...
!” suggestive of the fact that he has been talking to a different person, most likely a male.
A few moments later the phone rings one final time. He’s now told not to expect the doctor before noon the next day; he has two births (first gasps?) to attend to, one of which is breech
Breech birth
A breech birth is the birth of a baby from a breech presentation. In the breech presentation the baby enters the birth canal with the buttocks or feet first as opposed to the normal head first presentation....
.
Music and Voice are then heard “[t]ogether, ending, breaking off together, resuming together more and more feebly” and then there is nothing.
After a long pause the man whispers, “Tomorrow … noon …”
Interpretation
Critics tend to avoid or at best gloss over this short piece.“Beckett's play is a sort of quartet, a dialogue between a man, 'he', and a woman, 'she', interspersed by 'Music' and 'Voice'. 'Music' and 'Voice' are, we are led to believe, going on all the time; 'he' has two buttons, which allow him to listen in to them. Within the Beckett canon
Canon (fiction)
In the context of a work of fiction, the term canon denotes the material accepted as "official" in a fictional universe's fan base. It is often contrasted with, or used as the basis for, works of fan fiction, which are not considered canonical...
Rough for Radio I is usually thought of as a preliminary exploration of the possibilities of radio, which would be explored more fully in Cascando and Words and Music
Words and Music (play)
Samuel Beckett wrote the radio play, Words and Music between November and December 1961. It was recorded and broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on 13 November 1962. Patrick Magee played Words and Felix Felton, Croak. Music was composed especially by John Beckett. The play first appeared in print...
.” Barry McGovern
Barry McGovern
Barry McGovern is an Irish stage, film and television actor. He was educated at Castleknock College, Dublin.-Background:McGovern is a former member of the RTÉ Players and the Abbey Theatre Company. He has worked in theatre, film, radio and television, as well as written music for many shows, and...
confirms that Beckett requested that “[t]he first Rough for Radio [was] not for production, the author feeling that Cascando had overtaken it, so to speak.”
In Rough for Radio I, the voice and the music are switched on and off as if they are being broadcast simultaneously on two separate radio stations. The same idea is presented in Cascando, but there the voice and the music do not seem to derive from an external source. Very much as the sound of the sea is in Embers
Embers
Embers is a radio play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English in 1957 and first broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on 24 June 1959. Donald McWhinnie directed Jack MacGowran – for whom the play was specially written – as “Henry”, Kathleen Michael as “Ada” and Patrick Magee as “Riding Master”...
, in Radio I, as it is sometimes called, “[m]usic is not, as usual, merely functional (for instance, as intermezzo
Intermezzo
In music, an intermezzo , in the most general sense, is a composition which fits between other musical or dramatic entities, such as acts of a play or movements of a larger musical work...
, background music
Background music
Although background music was by the end of the 20th century generally identified with Muzak or elevator music, there are several stages in the development of this concept.-Antecedents:...
or even worse, quite simply a creator of atmosphere), but […] is allotted an intrinsic role.”
But it is not simply a matter of turning a radio on and off. Voice and Music are characters in their own right. They occupy identical physical locations and conditions away from the “elicitor”,http://www.answers.com/elicitor as Merle Tönnies refers to him, and are apparently unaware of each other’s existence. Macgillycuddy acts as a master figure [who] “extorts words or sounds from his servants or victims, over whom he appears to have absolute control.”
Only he doesn’t. Like the living statue in Catastrophe
Catastrophe (play)
Catastrophe is a short play by Samuel Beckett, written in French in 1982 at the invitation of A.I.D.A. and “[f]irst produced in the Avignon Festival … Beckett considered it ‘massacred.’” It is one of his few plays to deal with a political theme and, arguably, holds the title of Beckett's most...
Voice and Music are capable of rebellion, even if that rebellion is simply to die and thus upset the status quo
Status quo
Statu quo, a commonly used form of the original Latin "statu quo" – literally "the state in which" – is a Latin term meaning the current or existing state of affairs. To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are...
. As the play moves on it becomes clear that they are slipping out of his control. In many ways it is “obvious that the master is as dependent on his servants as they are on him.”
Rather than the doctor being needed to attend to the ailing Voice and Music, Barry McGovern has put forward the thought that it is the man himself who is seeking medical attention and draws a parallel with the Bolton and Holloway story in Embers.
It has also been suggested that the knobs access a kind of sonar
Sonar
Sonar is a technique that uses sound propagation to navigate, communicate with or detect other vessels...
, which could allow the visitor to monitor the two babies that are waiting to be born. There could be a personal connection too. He says everyone has left him. This might include a pregnant wife. The fact that Voice and Music occupy two identical spaces could represent wombs but there is too little to work with here to be sure.
Works inspired by
Radio I is a realisation of Rough for Radio I, which the DutchNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Richard Rijnvos
Richard Rijnvos
-Education and influences:Rijnvos studied composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague with Jan van Vlijmen and Brian Ferneyhough.He received a DAAD scholarship and attended a postgraduate course at the Musikhochschule in Freiburg....
made for Nederlandse Omroep Stichting
Nederlandse Omroep Stichting
The Nederlandse Omroep Stichting , English: Netherlands Broadcasting Foundation, is one of the broadcasters in the Netherlands Public Broadcasting system...
(NOS) in 1991. Michael Gough
Michael Gough
Michael Gough was an English character actor who appeared in over 150 films. He is perhaps best known to international audiences for his roles in the Hammer Horror films from 1958, and for his recurring role as Alfred Pennyworth in all four movies of the Burton/Schumacher Batman franchise,...
played ‘He’ and Joan Plowright
Joan Plowright
Joan Ann Plowright, Baroness Olivier, DBE , better known as Dame Joan Plowright, is an English actress, whose career has spanned over sixty years. Throughout her career she has won two Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award and has been nominated for an Academy Award, an Emmy, and two BAFTA Awards...
, ‘She’. The composer John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
was the voice with music by the Ives Ensemble.
In Raymond Gervais’s 2006 work Je suis venue pour écouter (I Have Come to Listen), extracts from Esquisse radiophonique as well as from his own translation of Rough for Radio II
Rough for Radio II
Rough for Radio II is a radio play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in French in 1961 as Pochade radiophonique and published in Minuit 16, November 1975. Beckett translated the work into English shortly before its broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 13 April 1976. Martin Esslin directed Harold Pinter ,...
appear on the cover of CD cases grouped together on the wall. Displayed in total darkness, the installation can only be discovered partially, with the use of a flashlight
Flashlight
A flashlight is a hand-held electric-powered light source. Usually the light source is a small incandescent lightbulb or light-emitting diode...
.