Visions of absence

beckett's footfalls, ghost trio and … but the clouds …

Martin Esslin

pp. 119-129

in: Ian Donaldson (ed), Transformations in modern European drama, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1983

Abstract

Not I and That Time are plays of total stasis, with the light focused on a fragment of the human body suspended in space. In the three plays which follow, movement is reintroduced. But, while Not I and That Time still contain remnants of the discursive, story-telling element, the three later plays increasingly concentrate on an image pure and simple.