Come and Go is a short play (described as a "dramaticule" on its title page) by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English in January 1965 and first performed (in German) at the Schillertheater, Berlin on 14 January 1966. Its English language premiere was at the Peacock Theatre, Dublin on 28 February 1968, and its British premiere was at the Royal Festival Hall in London on 9 December 1968. It was written for and dedicated to the publisher John Calder.
Some critics consider this one of Beckett's most "perfect" plays: Beckett agonized over each individual line until they exactly matched his creative vision. The play varies between "121 and 127 words"Knowlson, J. and Pilling, J., Frescoes of the Skull (London: John Calder, 1979), p 121 in length, depending on the translation (his notes are significantly longer than the actual play), and as such is rarely performed on its own.
Synopsis +Successive positionsBeckett, S., The Complete Dramatic Works (Faber & Faber, 2006) p 356 1 FLO VI RU 2 FLO RU FLO RU3 VI FLO RU4 VI RU VI RU 5 VI RU FLO6 VI FLO VI FLO7 RU VI FLO The play starts with three similar figures of "indeterminable"Beckett, S., Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 193 age, Flo, Vi, and Ru, sitting quietly on a narrow bench-like seat surrounded by darkness. They are childhood friends who once attended "Miss Wade's"Beckett, S., Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 194 together and sitting side by side in this manner is something they used to do in the playground back then. The three characters – unusually for Beckett – wear colourful full-length coats, albeit now dulled over time. They might give the impression of three faded flowers. "Drab nondescript hats … shade [their] faces."Beckett, S., Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 196
When together they make uneasy, highly stylized/processed small talk in an encounter that takes on a haunting ritual aspect. After a short time Vi, who is seated in the centre, rises and silently goes off stage. Once she is out of earshot Flo asks Ru how she thinks their absent friend is looking. "I see little change," Ru replies. Then Flo slides over to the middle to whisper an awful revelation to the other and swears her to secrecy. After this Vi returns and takes the seat vacated by Flo. The same scenario is then enacted twice more "[w]ith choreography suggestive of the sleight-of-hand artist (button under the thimble)"Overbeck, L. M., ‘"Getting On" Ritual as Façon in Beckett's Plays’ in Burkman, K. H., (Ed.) Myth and Ritual in the Plays of Samuel Beckett (London and Toronto: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1987), p 24 and with very similar dialogue until Vi finds herself back in the middle of the group; Ru and Flo's positions have however been reversed.
In this manner all three women at one point occupy the central position and all become privy to a secret about one of the others. Beckett said the action should be: "Stiff, slow, puppet-like."Harmon, M., Ed., No Author Better Served: The Correspondence of Samuel Beckett and Alan Schneider (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1998), p 417 The audience however does not get to hear what is whispered. The initial response in each instance is a shocked, "Oh," though Beckett specified that each should be unique in some way. These three whispers present moments of dramatic climax in contrast to the otherwise slow and calm mood. The most sensational whispered information is unheard by the audience and thus creates more mystery and a sense of ongoing interconnection between the trio which includes sharing "secrets."
At the play's conclusion, the three link hands "in the old way"Beckett, S., Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 195 (reminiscent of Winnie's "old style"Beckett, S., The Complete Dramatic Works, Faber and Faber p 143) forming an unbroken Celtic knot. Finally Flo says, "I can feel the rings", though none are apparent.
Staging
In a fashion typical of Beckett, the stage directions are exactingly detailed and precise. There are many precise numerical aspects to both the construction and staging worked out for the play. Due to the complexity of the movements throughout the piece, Beckett included a diagram of each of the characters' positioning during the performance. A diagram of the aforementioned rings, and the way they should be formed from the actors' hands, is also included. During the course of the play, each woman follows a variant set of the same basic movements performed once each involving a carefully realized silent/slow exit and reentry, shifting sitting positions on the bench, a slide to center, the whispering movements, returning to facing front, etc. This could just as easily be a mathematical or musical "set" with the same numbers/notes appearing in three different orders.
The precision of the lighting isolates the three women and obscures individual details so that the combined effect of costume, lighting and ritual movement creates a sense of intense similarity between the "individuals" comprising the trio. The one prop (the bench, described with great precision in Beckett's notes accompanying the play) is lit so as to minimize its visibility. The women take on a ghostly aspect as they glide silently and disappear/reappear into/from the surrounding darkness.
Interpretations
General The whole play's structure is circular (ring-like). It is divided into three exactly equal segments of seven lines during which a character exits and comes back in after completing their circuit, taking a different seat to the one they sat on originally. In this sense the characters also move around their seats in a ring shape.
Some speculate as to what the characters are discussing. From each response (Ru: (about Vi), "Does she not realise?" Vi: (about Flo), "Has she not been told?" Flo: (about Ru), "Does she not know?")Beckett, S., Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), pp 194,195 it is not unreasonable to assume that each, perhaps, is in fact terminally ill but unaware of the fact. "The unspoken nature of the condemnation in the final version is more powerful [than in Human Wishes (see below)] precisely because it is less explicit. For while it leaves a mystery unresolved, it also tends to lead one beyond the particular illness of an individual woman to embrace the fate of all mankind."Knowlson, J. and Pilling, J., Frescoes of the Skull (London: John Calder, 1979), pp 121,122 Other possibilities include a yet to be made public death or some other tragedy involving a personal connection to whatever is whispered for the absent character being whispered about.
The play might be seen as a coming of age situation. Vi yearns for the "old days", presumably when there were no awful secrets to tell but, at the same time, to which all three characters know there is no return. On one level "there is a sense of loss in the play, that the women will never regain the intimacy they once had together". Brenda Bynum, who has directed the play, feels the opposite, however: ‘Why does it have to be that they have lost something, why can it not be Beckett's longing for intimacy that they have and he can’t?’"Brenda Bynum interviewed by Lois Overbeck, Women in Beckett: Performance and Critical Perspectives (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990), p 52 Anthony Roche agrees: "[T]hey assert a strength through their interdependence which makes this play one of the most perfect theatrical ensembles ever devised."Roche, A., Samuel Beckett:The Great Plays After Godot in Samuel Beckett – 100 Years (Dublin: New Island, 2006), p 69
The joining of the hands evokes the symbol for infinity. "The ritual gesture of clasped hands allows them to keep their secrets from each other, but the feeling of the rings evokes the cycle of time. Twice turned upon itself, the bond of the three women (forever linked in their untold secrets) is never again what it was, never again what it seems to be. Something is the same, and everything is different."Overbeck, L. M., "Getting On" Ritual as Façon in Beckett's Plays, in Burkman, K. H., (Ed.) Myth and Ritual in the Plays of Samuel Beckett (London and Toronto: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1987), p 25 "Superficially they make us think of the Three Graces as they link hands, but, more precisely, they resemble in appearance the three mothers in Fritz Lang's M, a film much loved by Beckett."Knowlson, J. and Pilling, J., Frescoes of the Skull (London: John Calder, 1979), p 122
Whereas at the start of the play there is a reluctance to talk of the past, after each of the shocking revelations the three women willingly drift off into nostalgia"Davis's discontinuity hypothesis ... states that nostalgia is an emotional reaction to discontinuity in people's lives. Stated alternatively, people who experience disruption in their lives will rate the past more favourably than those who experience continuity. What are the sources of discontinuity? We would speculate that they include death of a loved one, health deterioration, relationship breakup or divorce, occupational crises (e.g., layoffs), and drops in standards of living. What are the emotional or existential consequences of discontinuity? Davis named "fears, discontents, anxieties, or uncertainties" (Davis, F. (1979). Yearning for Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia, New York: Free Press, p 34). We would add loneliness, alienation, and fear of death to the list. Nostalgia, then, is a coping mechanism for dealing with these highly uncomfortable psychological states." - Sedikedes, C., Wildschut, T. and Baden, D., Nostalgia: Conceptual Issues and Existential Functions, Handbook of Experimental Existential Psychology, Jeff Greenberg, Ed. as a means of coping with the present.
The rings that Flo says she feels "may be imagined a symbol of the frustrated hopes of youth, of marriages that never occurred [or failed] or equally their eternal union"Ackerley, C. J. and Gontarski, S. E., (Eds.) The Faber Companion to Samuel Beckett, (London: Faber and Faber, 2006), p104 that has kept them together throughout their personal tragedies. Or, perhaps, these women meet/exist outside of time and whatever rings they might have once worn have disappeared along the way.
"Ethereal though the women of Come and Go might be, they are substantial personae in comparison with the wraith-like beings of the ‘supplication plays.’ And painful though the shock to their sensibilities has been, they have the comforting presence of each other to offset their sadness. They comprise a community, and are therefore not wholly reliant on memory to remedy or sedate. No such comfort is available in the later dramaticules, however, where night after night alienated beings implore their loved ones to make their presence felt."Brown, V., Yesterday’s Deformities: A Discussion of the Role of Memory and Discourse in the Plays of Samuel Beckett , (doctoral thesis) p 223
Ru and Flo's names bring to mind the verbs 'rue' and 'flow' respectively, which hold certain applicable implications to what transpires.
Shakespeare Vi's opening line ("When did we three last meet?") recalls that of Shakespeare's Three Witches ("When shall we three meet again?" - Macbeth: Act 1, Scene 1) and Ru and Vi's names recall the names of Ophelia's flowers in her mad scene.Roche, A., Samuel Beckett:The Great Plays After Godot, Samuel Beckett – 100 Years (Dublin: New Island, 2006), p 69 ("There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me; we may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays", "I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died." Hamlet - Act 4, Scene 5).
Background