Samuel Beckett - Four Plays from Beckett on Film series

Ohio Impromptu, written in 1980, opens with a figure clad in black with long white hair hiding his face and sitting on a white chair at a white table. There are two characters, the Reader and the Listener. The Reader, it emerges, is a mysterious messenger from someone now dead and once loved by the Listener.



This production features Jeremy Irons as Reader and Listener, and was directed by Charles Sturridge.



Play was written in English in December 1963. Three urns stand on the stage. From each, a head protrudes â?? a man and two women. The play tells the story of a love triangle, and each character narrates a bitter history and their role in it. On the stage, each head is provoked into speech by an spotlight. In the film, the camera takes the role of the spotlight.



This production features Alan Rickman as M; Kristin Scott Thomas as W1; Juliet Stevenson as W2; directed by Anthony Minghella.



Written in French in the 1950s, Rough for Theatre I features a blind man ('A') and a physically disabled man ('B') who meet by chance and consider the possibility of joining forces to unite sight and mobility in the interests of survival. Each once had a woman and now has no one to help him. B is the pragmatist while A keeps asking questions. B is reticent, never seeming to have noticed these things. B becomes cranky, going as far as to strike A, but being crippled he also needs him. The play ends in uneasiness and latent violence.



This production features David Kelly as A; Milo O'Shea as B; directed by Kieron J Walsh



In Rough for Theatre II, written in French in the 1950s, two men, 'A' and 'B', try to assess the life of 'C', who is standing motionless, with his back to the audience, ready to jump out of the window. A and B review his life with mass documentation as though he were not present. The documents are mainly quotations from C's acquaintances. A and B consider the flotsam and jetsam of C's life including his confessed 'morbid sensitivity to the opinions of others'. Distracted by the electric light and the love-birds they find in a cage, they do not appear to be giving their task due concentration. They finally decide to let him jump, only to discover he is already dead.



This production features Jim Norton as A; Timothy Spall as B; Hugh O'Brien as C; directed by Katie Mitchell.



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