Repetition and the Visual in Beckett's Act Without Words Anonymous College

The title of Beckett’s play, ‘Act Without Words I’, betrays an immediate awareness of its dual status as a text on a page and as a thing intended to be used for performance. The title, lacking an indefinite article preceding it, could be read either as descriptive: ‘An Act Without Words I’, or as an imperative command to the reader: ‘Act without words!’ From the outset then, there is a self-awareness about the text’s unstable or unfamiliar status. On the page, it does not look like a play-text usually does; there are no character names, speech, or italicized stage directions. The page looks like widely spaced prose or even poetry; and yet it declares itself in writing as ‘a mime for one player’, and indicates at the end that a ‘curtain’ should fall. At a preliminary glance, the play is a set of precise directions for a ‘player’ to imitate. The lack of speech, or textual elaboration upon the motives or inward life of the man make the text appear both unlike a written story, and unlike a dramatic performance text. Yet it is precisely these qualities that constitute a special relationship between the reader, text, and potential performance through the act of reading. Beckett uses the blank space on the page, punctuation, and...