By Robert Lukehart

My Treatment for Waiting for Godot
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There is still much work to be done in shedding the stigma of obscurity and the perception of �absurdity� from Samuel Beckett�s dramatic repertoire. This is fundamentally a problem of the critic�s propagation. This post-war, existentialist affiliation with Beckett's work fails to recognize the uniquely subjective Voice that Beckett brings to the world stage. With Beckett, I raise Voice to a higher standard that implies more than the idiosyncratic frequencies of sound or tableau of words that achieve �character.� Voice becomes an actual intrapersonal communion with the quintessential other, as I attempt to explain here.

Beckett�s core predicament with his own imagination has been one of intense realism and personal strife. Yet his command over Voice is so complete that it requires us to place a greater premium of independence and subjectivity on his interior monologues. The result of such an emphasis on Voice will help us better direct the production of Beckett�s work as well as help us overcome the myths of obscurity, absurdity and the supposed themes of failed communication that are too often associated with his unique style. As with other inconsistencies, we discover in the course of reassessing Beckett that the theme of failed communications will suffice only on the most superficial, situational level. In fact, the power of Beckett�s Voice to communicate is one of the miracles of twentieth century drama.

How does one support the argument that Beckett�s body of drama continues to be sustained by professional productions the world over without that work being fundamentally grounded in a substantial form of emotional realism? The question begs yet another practical concern for the actor: How is it possible that mainstream theatre criticism still puts forth the notion that many of Beckett�s voices fail the qualifications necessary for being tried and certified �characters?� It could be possible that this point of view shares the same misconceptions that stigmatize many religious and metaphysical belief systems that require the full subjective involvement of the perceiver himself. Do we then move Beckett criticism into the realm of the occult? I think such a move is extreme but indicative of Beckett�s subjective imperative of Voice.

It is doubtlessly true that few audiences anywhere will willingly set aside the barrier of objective detachment and allow Beckett�s Voice to speak to them as completely and as subjectively as it may speak to the actor for example. Few artists in world history have produced so genuine a spectrum of solitudes in the medium of the human Voice, or have sheltered them in a more compelling space in order to render them as vital, humorous and clear as Beckett has done.

Yet, the work to release these voices from the void of confused and superficial interpretation remains. If Beckett�s earlier dramatic works enjoy the popular approval of world-wide intellectual recognition, his later works do not. Many of his shorter plays fail to be produced because they fail the ornamental aesthetics of a popular reception--and more predictably, their staged voices fail to achieve the emotional immediacy of their true Voice. These short plays are rarely presented as an intimate theatre of the mind, endowed with primal human vitality and urgency of Voice. Instead, they have been presented as monotonal intellectual puzzles due, no doubt, to all the philosophical hype surrounding Beckett�s mystique.

The likelihood of Beckett�s work being received, not as a staged academic performance but rather a performance for the deeply humanistic and emotionally engaged mind, is not forthcoming without a concerted effort to emphasize Beckett�s crucial distinction from the dialectical materialists. In regard to the theatre of the mind, there must be less emphasis placed on the imposition of a philosophical thesis or political treatment of Beckett�s work and more emphasis placed on what I shall call �symbolic realism.�

Symbolic meaning will always outperform discursive attempts at existentialist meaning because of the implicit range inherent to active symbols. Active symbols simply speak more fully and with more emotional urgency and depth than dialectical mechanisms of rhetorical logic. Given Beckett�s poetic achievement in metaphysical imagery and enormous inventiveness for vocal devices of cadence, repetition and free-flowing consciousness, it is unfortunate that many presentations of these emotional devices are delivered in a numbing and sterile didactic tone. The subjective Voice is rarely explored for its symbolic resonance or its capacity to achieve communal associations. And Beckett�s warnings against engaging in the study of overtones in his work has sometimes been taken to the point of draconian literalness, ignoring the highly charged subjective and religious overtones.

In Beckett�s case, his extreme economy of voice and image creates the ideal environment for optimum symbolic resonance. This is not to say that the actor must become the symbol as an emotionally disassociated puppet. Beckett�s symbols work simultaneously, in synchronicity, instead of serially, very much in the same fashion as dream symbols and dream voices. As with dreams, Beckett�s symbols strive toward condensation, free-association and communal resonance. They seek meanings within their sphere of associations. Without being able to expand all of the functions of symbolism in Beckett�s work and still remain within the space of this paper, I will instead focus on Beckett�s richest mode of symbolic expression: Voice.

The single most defining attribute to Beckett�s Voice or voices is his absolute conviction of their emotional authenticity. As a matter of literary integrity, Beckett spares no expense of time in the process of waiting for each distinct voice to emerge from its respective, dormant space. Through the cadence, rhythm or idiosyncrasies of each voice, Beckett possesses the critical insight necessary to adequately describe the physical environment and appearance of the subject behind the voice. Whether these voices speak from an explicit or subconscious storehouse of memories, or whether they emerge completely on their own, the true value of these voices resides in their stark clarity and human urgency.

With Beckett we must start with the proposition of multiple and subjective voices within the author himself. Not phoney or fictional voices, but voices that have vividly and independently spoken in his consciousness. These are truly subjective, happening and present voices. As he has told us, they have become his �creatures� in a direct communion with what we might call the authoritarian I. In what has become his signature, the subjective imperative of Voice is one of Beckett�s hallmark achievements. Not only does his work raise new standards of creative integrity, but the perimeters of artistic subjectivity have been greatly expanded.

Clarity of Voice is coupled with clarity of space and form. In �Imagination Dead Imagine,� the reader is quite explicitly led on a virtual reality trip through a vivid interior realm of Beckett�s imagination. The startling awareness brought forward in this journey is the proposition that the object under consideration is a product of an intrinsically passive imagination. Movement in and around the object takes place by the author�s command with a shifting point of view that resembles the key-stroke movement of a C.A.D. software application, complete with specific vertices A,B,C,D. The highly symmetrical rotunda contained within a �great whiteness� reveals a storm of heat and cold and the embryonic arrangement of two inexplicable �bodies.�

These are two �creatures,� as Beckett might say. Except for the author�s narration, the subjective imperative of Voice is here highly minimalist in the form of a slight �murmur.� But the murmur and �infinitesimal shudder� is unconditionally validated by the surrealistic power of Beckett�s vision. These are true independent subjects within Beckett�s higher standard of subjectivity. Their image may function on many symbolic levels simultaneously, but their over-riding condition is that of vital and absolute otherness.

From this proposition we begin to comprehend the minimalist mise-en-scene of a smaller space from which the I feels some level of security in knowing that this space is not contrived, should we dare say, ontologically sacred? We begin to understand what �literary integrity� means for Beckett. Integrity has a great deal to do with listening to these voices. This is in direct contrast to working or creating these voices. The authoritarian I regards imagination and other events of the mind as distinctly separate from itself. Going even further, the products of these separations of mind are systematically ordered, defined and circumscribed to the point of full mental tessellation. Such a geometrically precise arrangement is actually supported by current neurological study and goes a great distance toward confirming an actual �theatre of the mind.�

For Beckett, the argument can be put forth that his fictional Voice is really no fiction at all. Beckett has been able to raise �fictional� mental activity to the level of situational fact. The proof of which is found in his compellingly immediate narratives, dialogues and settings. Fiction, in terms of the contrived narrative or dialogue, lacks the fundamental integrity of being ontologically kosher. In other words, conventional narrative fails his test of becoming the confluence of both honest, authoritarian observation and vivid subjective detachment. Beckett�s crucial vantage point is on passive consciousness which perceives the other. The creative I then listens to the regions of consciousness which exhibit the implicit and explicit soundings of the interior Voice. Though it is taboo to speak of such a voice in the plural, we all experience �them.� Beckett has attained an extraordinary grasp on the subjective nature of Voice in a way which is fundamentally separate from conventional authoritarian involvement. He observes these voices with an engaged yet fundamentally passive consciousness.

By �passive consciousness,� I am not implying a day-dream activity of rambling free-association. Beckett commands the crux of subjectivity in a way that illuminates that space with laser precision. Just as a van Gogh self-portrait beams its creator�s ontological scream in the century-instant of its hang, the Voice of Winnie, Pozzo and Hamm beam across this same intrapersonal dimension of revolt in ontological horror. From this vantage point, Beckett�s observations on the interior plain was more than virtual reality. It was reality incarnate.

One can be reasonably sure that all the neurological crevices of Beckett�s mind had been charged out to their fullest capacity as corporal metaphors. For the action of reaching for calmatives to cure the incurable dream of self never ceased to stir on some infinitesimal level of Beckett�s mind. The nature of self-awareness is the irresolvable paradox of subjective detachment. The best example of such a riveting subjective detachment, which is familiar to many of us, is the common looking-glass phenomenon which I will elaborate on later.

Beckett�s experimentation with Voice produced many variations on the same theme. Of the proposition of otherness, he explored the subtle shifts of Voice by representing the interior monologue of memory. In That Time, David Warrilow�s production of A, B and C portrayed three ages of the protagonist�s life in a carefully orchestrated sequence of monologues. The memories of three distinct ages flow one to the other with only the slightest pause and variation of Voice. In Play the illuminations of actors initiates three distinct voices and idiosyncrasies in what amounts to a consciousness of free-association with little illumination of the controlling agent. The mysterious spotlight becomes an analogue for the transmigration of point-of-view and consciousness. Or, as in Come and Go, the seat of consciousness is in continual flux.

The usefulness of this speculation on Beckett�s creative process is meant to assist us in a directorial vision for his works. There is no argument as to the authority Beckett maintained over his creative I. What is at issue is the tone, emotional range and vision of the subjects that this I brought forth. Is what the I selected as a crucial element of Voice a matter of �knowing� what is right or �feeling� what is right for the structure and substance of a play? This distinction is critical if we are to find a means of analyzing each play in the same manner in which it has been created. In other words, if our critical language used in discussing Waiting for Godot or Endgame finds no relation to Beckett�s creative process itself, then such discussion is well off the mark. If we adopt a cognitive, �knowing� attitude toward Beckett�s work, then our capacity to experience the associative richness of his work becomes diminished.

The proposition of voices in that uneasy and disjunctive sense of being the other must be very difficult for many critics, directors and actors to accept. This is made evident by the continued labeling of Beckett�s work as �absurdism.� It is indicative of Beckett�s symbolic range that much of his loftiest metaphysical insights ride on the heels of vagabonds engaged in a practical joke. Situational simplicity reduced to its most fundamental mechanism and given to repetition portends philosophical depth. Such irony is not only a manner of thinking, but a mode of observing. Observation is, after all, the role of the audience and author alike. One depends on the other. For Beckett, the action of observing becomes the action of creation itself. But this is an observation that is distinctly elevated to the interior stage.

The implication of a passive imagination bent on observation and interior correspondence suggests an invalidation of the creative process itself. Even with the enormous energy and uncommon judgment required to bring extensive order out of such a vision, the idea of a creative process which is fundamentally implicit and free-flowing is still rigorously resisted. It is frequently held up as a standard of honor that the creative process is one of cognitive individuality and superfluous personal energy. Few would concede the possibility of a great play being conceived from the vantage point of a child�s �active imagination,� or that the theatre of the mind can be as immediate and engaging as the �real thing.� It is still held that true artists must sweat in the heat and fury of the �old school� of creativity.

Those who would place Beckett on this highest of pedestals tend to venture too far in the direction of creative objecti ve detachment. They place entirely too much rationalistic authority on Beckett�s creative I. When he warns us not to imply symbolic meaning in his work �where none is intended,� many Beckett followers go so far as to shun symbolic interpretation of his most heavily endowed symbols and characters. Such a loaded word as intended, a useless enigma and rationalistic variant of the�vision thing,� is impossible for the critic or scholar to fully extrapolate. The venerable scholar wants to grant Beckett the fullest possible position of �knowing� his own works, even when �feeling� seems much more appropriate. A further extension of this logic places Beckett firmly in the existentialist camp, a proposition which denies his inherent revulsion for contrived systems that extend beyond his most immediate observations.

By granting Beckett this omnipotent, explicit knowledge over his works, scholars search meticulously to discover biographical clues and statements which might serve as sign posts to direct their literary inquiry. In short, what Beckett has said about a play or narrative begins to take precedent over the work it self. Such efforts can bring ornamentation and genuine clarity to specific allusions, but do little to explain how these works resonate with deeper, metaphysical meanings. The standard which must be applied is Beckett�s own higher standard of the subjective imperative of Voice. Such an imperative implies that the voice of a Beckett character is indeed an independent and self-sustained entity in and of itself. The most successful of these voices have become the memorable characters who continue to live and breath on a very realistic plain of theatrical existence.

Any discursory attempt to illuminate Beckett�s world of characters will necessitate the use of a fundamentally nondiscursive vocabulary. Otherwise, such discussions begin to taint the tone and validity of the performance. Many theatre scholars honor Beckett�s achievement in becoming the first great tragi-comic dramatist, but few of these praises pay tribute to the emotional realism of Voice itself. A full explanation for this oversight is not forthcoming however. Ill-conceived attempts to approach and identify Beckett�s drama have produced the unfortunate categorical oxymoron known as �absurdist drama.� Such sterile attempts to find order and intrapersonal levels of universality in Beckett�s work have yielded to academic contrivance and metaphysical cowardice, the result being a label that implies disorder and disassociation from �realism.� Without some bent on realism, drama is simply presentation, and �absurdist drama� serves only the function of becoming self-fulfilling and subsequently hollow and void of humanistic vitality.

Discursive criticism finds its common denominator in the Socratic logic of detached objectification and meiotic mechanisms of verbal confrontation. Such logic becomes the defamation of clarity in Beckett�s case. For Beckett�s revolt, more than any other great dramatist, is experienced most fully through the subjective imperative of Voice. Discursive criticism seems all but oblivious to this fundamentally subjective prerogative. Once the subjective imperative of Voice is adopted in Beckett�s work and followed to its ultimate conclusion, the paradox of objective detachment will be fully exposed as being functionally �absurd� and even worse, irrelevant. For Beckett�s voices seek a deeper rationality that call, not for outward action, but for inward stasis.

Once we enter the oxymoronic centrifuge of Beckett�s world, we become fully aware of the subjective imperative of Voice and its telltale, steadfast eye on Destiny. This is a destiny that is �absurd� only in regard to its most superficial, situational level. Yet even here, the nemesis of situational absurdity brings an urgency for belief: Creo quia absurdum est. In nearly all other respects, the mise-en-scene of Beckett�s stage is a richly endowed, subjective space that functions as an accurate and meticulous projection of pure dramatic Destiny. If memory is the great synthesizer, Destiny is the ultimate analyzer and highest theme of modern tragi-comedy.

With Beckett�s focus on Destiny, the future becomes memory in retrospect. Such an oxymoron as Destiny�s retrospect on the future becomes the modernist�s tragedy and the indelible signature of Beckett. The attempts to lower Beckett�s stature as the quintessential avant-garde dramatist have relied heavily on the meiotic distortion of discursive, political criticism. Peter Weiss in an interview in 1964 laments the �hopelessness� of Beckett, who �lives like a kind of embryo in a world too strong for him.� But this embryonic perspective is powerful precisely because of the force of an extrasensory, fully subjective perspective that, by its very nature, prioritizes the fundamentals of the human condition. In such a powerful centrifuge, it is the world that becomes weak, paltry and hopeless. By negating all that is peripheral to the politically unexamined life, Beckett builds his own subjective perspective on the nature of time, space, consciousness and yes, extrapersonal politics. His embryonic imagination extends into the future where the final epiphany of this dying animal called Man is raised to a Proustian level of tragic remembrance of things past--things distantly past and always secretly known.

Such knowledge is resiliently dormant and requires many levels of awareness which defy rational attempts at categorical delineation. It is by the careful manipulation of communal symbols and the subjective penetration of Voice that we experience the transmigration of character from the external stage to the internal stage. Beckett�s authority resides in achieving this internal transmigration. This process is no more miraculous than other surrealistic ceremonies, be they religious, hypnotic or situationally sublime. A muted and less courageous term for this effect may be �suspension of disbelief.� But the importance of space, lighting and Voice become paramount in our discussion of performance that will commend this intrapersonal voyage.

How then do we account for Beckett�s alchemy in fusing together the poetic equivalent of social communion, turning an unflinching eye on Destiny and bringing harmonious praises from artists all over the world? Without delving into the mercurial occult, I have instead delved into the mysticism of psychological language. The most recent marriage of opposites in the psychology community refer to two distinct forms of memory: explicit memory and implicit memory. These may be helpful in understanding the actions and motivations of Beckett�s characters since they are products of psychological realism. Explicit memory refers to our conventional understanding of memory: representations of images, sounds and voices which we actively retrieve from our brain�s data base. Implicit memory, however, is not active in the same sense. We possess little or no control over our implicit memories, since they appear to come to us passively. We may not be consciously aware of them. That is, they can be subconscious, producing behavior or emotion in the subject, but not necessarily mental affirmation or clarity. More importantly, implicit memory can be unconsciously stimulated and directed by voices other than our own.

Beckett�s art is capable of stimulating a great deal of implicit memory in the audience and actors alike. This occurs only after the philosophizing over form and function is effectively shed, and Beckett�s characters succeed in stimulating the mind�s deeper rationality. This phenomenon of transmigration from the object of art to the beholder of art has been analyzed using Jungian language of archetypes and Freudian language of free-association. For my purposes, I will not speculate on the nature of these subconscious processes, though I must refer to Freud�s psychological framework as a kind of heuristic reference point. I will instead emphasize the fundamental division separating Beckett�s subjective imperative of Voice from that of conventional objective attachment and the implied subject/object association.

In the theatre before Beckett, only the French Symbolist and avant-garde movement of the late 19th century attempted to break the barrier between these two realms of awareness. The symbolists attempted to discover objects and images that would facilitate the transmigration process from objective awareness to full subjective assimilation. Many of their attempts relied upon fantastic staging that called attention to its literalness and was relatively disassociated from Voice. Previous to them, only the ancient Greeks, with their powerful folklore and humanistic religion, attempted to span the gulf between objective spectacle and subjective, symbolic immediacy. History cannot tell us whether Aeschylus or Sophocles succeeded in penetrating this barrier between actor and audience or that of character and actor. The histrionics of Voice in ancient times cannot be recovered.

In the gray, purgatorial world of Beckett�s stage, we see a deliberate negation of literalness except for the precise arrangement of highly charged, suggestive objects, sounds and lighting effects. These stagings embrace the interior world of mental associations. Literal props tend to be small--smaller than the resonance of words spoken to describe them. This minimalist posture invites an almost hypnotic response and a keen awareness of the authoritative Voice--the authority of which is over consciousness itself. Many of Beckett�s stagings, such as A Piece of Monologue, are explicitly hypnotic, seemingly by design. But in Monologue, the objective of hypnotism is not hypnotic sleep but complete awareness of self-extinction. The repetition and alliteration produce the Joycean effect of transmigrational consciousness as found in the poetic closure to �The Dead.� The dominance of Voice and the stationary standard light is indicative of the hypnotic process itself, but the greater whiteness of the void within is the true destination of the Voice.

The fundamental ceremonial action used to impregnate the void beyond Beckett�s space is the precise manipulation of communal symbols. These symbols, by their nature, resist definition. If they were easy to define, they would cease to hold our fascination. They function best in an interior, subjective realm where, ironically, complete sensory deprivation brings them into a stronger light. They are distinct from �signs� or metaphors, because they resonate on a deeper level of consciousness where they mingle with subjective and archetypal associations of personal reflection and enter the confluence of many other meanings.

Beckett drew heavily from his most immediate environment, taking some of his most privately charged props and symbolic forces from everyday life. Various electrical devices such as lamps, radios and recorders served as highly charged symbolic gateways of being, reflecting the metaphysical image and action of the Self. Yet Beckett�s steadfast focus on Destiny requires that the layers of symbolic meaning (which become the touchstones of self-awareness) be stripped away for audience and actor alike.

One of the ways to strip away these self-effacing layers of the reflective process is to be guided to do so by the subjective imperative of Voice. Using the hypnotist as a prime example, one of the goals of such a Voice is to achieve a sense of benevolence and comfort in the listener and to do so through careful repetitions and poetic cadence. There is nothing forced or awkward about this Voice, for the goal of the hypnotist is to conceal the objectivity of his presence.

Distinct passages in Beckett�s dialogues, particularly those of female voices, seek this same goal of benevolent subjective penetration. The music of Voice resides in the alliteration, imagery and repetition of the most metaphysically suggestive words. Other passages such as Lucky�s long speech serve to enter our subjective awareness with a greater level of psychic disturbance. The difficult birth of his deeply metaphysical speech parallels that of his physical journey, but remains defiantly lyrical. Regardless of the tone or poetic resonance, the mode of transmission is fundamentally the same: repetition, alliteration and emotional urgency punctuated by the true authenticity of Voice. Together these function hand in hand to disarm our attempts to remain objectively distant. The �meaning� of such dialogue depends highly upon the success of its subjective penetration. As the urgency and compelling structure of Voice succeeds in gaining access to our internal stage, it becomes difficult to distinguish thought from emotion. These bill of goods that have been sold to us as existentialist philosophy are ultimately consumed as objects of pure emotional engagement, or else they fail as theatre.

Mirror Mirror

As we have all heard, one of the rudimentary methods used to measure the intelligence of animals or even the development of infants is to place a mirror before them and see if they possess the capacity to recognize their own reflection. There are, of course, various levels of recognition possible, beginning with fundamental perceptions such as movement and form and moving through several categories of object identification including the awareness of self and the mirror itself for its functionality. On a more sophisticated level, this same procedure works as a metaphor in evaluating a viewer�s response to Beckett�s work.

As human beings, we have the capacity to view ourselves as objects in the looking-glass. Beyond a certain age of development, our behavior in the mirror becomes routine, and we become secure with the objective attachment we develop with our bodies. We are also aware of the active nature of such an attachment. That is to say, our association with the mirror is not merely one of image-recognition, but also one of action or performance. Through internal reflection, we begin to form our sense of identity based largely upon those mysterious mirrors of the mind which reflect our habitual actions. In the world of Beckett the function of Time, consciousness and personal, defining action all flow into the confluence of character and become what we might call �Identity.�

With the Beckett experience, a useful analogy in the study of a character�s Voice and behavior, the frequent leaps from objective attachment to subjective detachment, is the study of the familiar looking-glass phenomenon. In this phenomenon, a subject�s gaze into the mirror suddenly shifts from that of a familiar performance (such as brushing the teeth) to that of a profound personal event of ontological horror. Through this vivid experience, the commonplace image of the face in the glass can transform dramatically from routine action to metaphysical paralysis. What distinguishes this shift from subject to object then back to reverberating subject is not merely a shift in interpretive perspectives, but a complete reversal of assumed realities.

The looking-glass phenomenon can be a child�s first metaphysical epiphany where the object of the body is rendered alien or �absurd.� This event can be illustrated using a triangle as in Figure 1. It is important to note that the leap from the exterior objective realm to the interior subjective realm occurs at the point of reflection, where the mirror�s reflection synchronizes two distinct actions--one active, one passive--and becomes one with resonating self-surprise. This quantum leap from one realm to the other, through what amounts to be the passive action of regressive stasis, is a convenient analogy for the study of many of Beckett�s Voices and situations.

Some of the most resounding moments of regressive stasis occur in �Company� and Krapp�s Last Tape. For Krapp, the action of reflection works according to the process of audial and mental synchronicity. In an action which is familiar to all of us, Krapp list ens to his own words (which were recorded thirty years earlier) and is surprised and dismayed by the disjunctive quality of subjective detachment. His surprise is one of alienation from his own voice, but is further compounded by the action of reflection itself. For his memory over the course of thirty years has failed to prepare him for the content and sense of otherness with his more distant Voice.

Though Krapp has changed little over this span of time, his loss of explicit memory forces him to rely on the regressive powers of implicit memory. Yet, this memory confirms only subjective detachment. The activity of Krapp�s most immediate I is in the process of listening to the voice of a more distant I for which the former I has little explicit memory. What results is the paradox of two or more I�s within the same Voice. As with the looking-glass phenomenon, the act of reflecting on the true �self� paradoxically produces a profound subjective detachment. This form of reflection produces a powerful ontological calamity within K rapp, sin ce implicit memory of the distant I can bring forward associations and philosophical paradoxes which explicit memory alone will not bring for th.

The Symbolist movement of the last three decades of the 19th century was fundamentally a revolt against the tired and ontologically suspect narrative structures of naturalism and realism which dominated both literature and dramaturgy. In an effort to bring a fresh subjective perspective to the stage, the French Symbolist poets such as Stephane Mallarme, Maurice Maeterlinck and Villiers de l�Isle-Adam initiated the first mise-en- scene of avant-garde theatre. In breaking with traditional narrative forms, the Symbolists sought a more comprehensive form of dramatic expressionism. In its many varied techniques, the Symbolist�s revolt was fundamentally a social one. In seeking an expressive break from bourgeoisie realism, the Symbolists inadvertently pursued their own �realism� in the form of the associative stimulus of symbols or what is known as symbolic resonance.

The quantum leap from explicit memory to implicit memory produces the core distinction between signs or metaphors and symbols. Symbols, as employed by Beckett, are the gateways through which the actors and audience can enter into the multi-layered and highly charged environment of his interior dramatic space. This passage serves to demolish the myth of �absurdist theatre� in Beckett�s case. Since Beckett�s space, and the props which he relies upon, become the touchstones of implicit, subjective resonance, it is required of the viewer to shed his or her bias for comfortable objective attachment. It is required of him or her to undertake the journey between these two realms and to do so through the complete immersion into Beckett�s subjective imperative of Voice.

A full appreciation of Beckett�s subjective imperative of Voice cannot occur without an awareness of these two realms and the action or actions employed in moving from one realm to the other. Winnie in Happy Days becomes a meticulous study of the illusion of objective attachment. As she enjoys the comforts of familiar objects, she displays a talent for a multitude of everyday performances. Her enjoyment is further maintained as she explores her explicit memory of Willie and other objects from which she can maintain the illusion of objective attachment. These memories often bring her smiles, laughter and a sense of sanctity. She blunders into fantasy only in relation to the material objects within her grasp. A Dante-esque reading of her character�s fundamental action would reveal a pious, ceremonial action. After all, her fundamental calmative is communion itself. Yet her Character becomes all the small actions which are raised to the level of ceremony.

As her existence progresses toward a defining Destiny, the objects of her communion dramatically increase their grip on her until she becomes completely attached, from the neck down, to the object of the world itself. As Winnie becomes absorbed by objective attachment, we see the triggering mechanisms which send her uncomfortably into her private calamity of subjective detachment. Beginning with the small mirror which she retrieves in scene one, her happy association with familiar comforts is often punctuated with regressive moments of pause, mild expletives and the sudden dropping of a smile. Her proclamations in the mirror expose her private, pious pleadings: �--good Lord!...good God!� Speaking of her gums in the mirror, her duplicitous language speaks of her metaphysical condition: �ah well...no worse...no better, no worse...no change...�

Being able only to speak and turn her head, her efforts to calm the hungers of implicit memory and her failure to commune with familiar objectives of comfort causes her to rely on the only calmative she has left: regressive stasis. Yet, the rooted condition found in previous Beckett plays does not produce such a calmative. In fact, such a predicament, reminiscent of Nag and Nell, had previously produced a darker-than-ink calamity in the characters� situation. Here Winnie is coping with the intolerable situation with extraordinary optimism.

Winnie modestly perceives her new-found paralysis in unselfish terms. Being effectively sexless, she says of her mirror: �Take my looking-glass, it doesn�t need me.� In fact, her immobility has freed her from many reflective processes, but not from the single variable that defines her consciousness: Time. On the subject of categorical time awareness, she says of the bell: �It hurts like a knife...A gouge...One cannot ignore it...How often...I say how often I have said, Ignore it, Winnie, ignore the bell, pay no heed, just sleep and wake, sleep and wake...in the way you find most helpful.�

Change inevitably comes to her in the form of full mental and spiritual communion with the void beyond and around her. As Winnie loses the use and function of her arms and the symbolic function of her breasts, she compensates with an effort of sanctimonious optimism that is pitted against the most horrific of predicaments. Buried to her neck and securely grounded in an inexplicable, earthbound attachment, she becomes sanctified in her faith in an absent God. Like Joan of Arc, she possesses a grace and composure in the face of death.

Though she speaks to the void itself, she nonetheless finds the power to expand her web of calmatives to embrace that of the earth itself: �Do you think the earth has lost its atmosphere, Willie?� Her Destiny is toward complete burial and suffocation. The implication of her being the symbol of the earth is, of course, that of Beckett�s own mother. Her dignity at the onset of death is relentlessly active. The activity of her Protestant materialism--the synchronicity of spiritual communion with that of earthly materialism--is an activity raised to a ceremonial pitch where Action = Character and Character = Destiny. Where Shelters the Night

To view Beckett�s work as an exploration of consciousness is a departure for which we have no clear language. The play itself is the language, the space and the silence, and its primary form is symbolic. Yet, symbolism in the traditional sense is inadequate in itself. What is needed is a higher classification which I have called �symbolic realism.� This form of realism strives to illuminate fundamentally archetypal images and perceptions of space and time which function according to the surrealist�s imperative of bringing a higher level of consciousness out of the work.

The troublesome aspect of symbolic interpretation is the subjectification or the politicalization of the object of the work being performed. The nature of expressive symbols is their inherent fertility. This can lead to obvious abuses of speculation. Clearly, a personal reflection on Godot can illicit many outlandish interpretations. Agendas can be advanced in the name of Godot which are foreign to anything that Beckett might have been led to endorse. Yet the dangers of dubious treatments and suspect interpretations of Beckett�s work should not inhibit us in our efforts to explore the symbolic nature and range of his images and sounds. Responding to the broad speculation on the overtones of his plays, Beckett took a characteristically wry stance: �My work is a matter of fundamental sounds (no joke intended) made as fully as possible.� The effort, then, is toward �fullness� and not toward a specific social revolt or an awkwardly imposed agenda.

Like Virgil in The Divine Comedy, Beckett�s mission is to guide us through the spheres of human consciousness toward a space that shelters the night. Where each Voice, in a spectrum of solitudes, becomes an echo of our own. In this time and place, each is his own representative of all humankind. Words find their true resonance, and the confusion of opposites find harmony. Beckett�s task is simply to turn us away, briefly, from all the contrived voices, full of heat and fury, that speak the fundamental babble of denial and distraction. From there he delivers us Destiny.