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{{italic title}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2020}}
==Synopsis==▼
▲[[Samuel Beckett]] wrote his television play '''''... but the clouds ...''''' between October-November [[1976]] “to replace a film of ''[[Play (play)|Play]]'' which the [[BBC]] had sent [him] for approval (and which he had rejected)”<ref>Ackerley, C. J. and Gontarski, S. E., (Eds.) ''The Faber Companion to Samuel Beckett'', (London: Faber and Faber, 2006), p 77</ref> due to “the poor quality of the film”. Donald McWhinnie directed [[Billie Whitelaw]] and [[Ronald Pickup]]. It was first broadcast on 17th April [[1977]] as part of a programme of three Beckett plays entitled ‘Shades’ on [[BBC2]]. It was first published in ''Ends and Odds'' (Faber) 1977. An early title for the piece was '''''Poetry only love'''''.
The play opens in darkness
In summary, the play begins with M in darkness, seen in a recurring pose at his invisible table. We hear M's thoughts as he reminisces about encountering the woman, while M1 acts out these recollections in the circle of light. M reflects on the cause of her appearance, his routine, and his continuous cycle of summoning her at night and leaving at dawn.
The voice lists the three instances listed above where the woman has appeared to him in the past. When he reaches the third one the camera cuts to the
We see M1 prepare for the road again and leave. The voice says,
==Title==
The title comes from a phrase from the last verse of [[W. B. Yeats|
''[[The Tower (poem)|The Tower]]'':
::: Now shall I make my soul,
▲The title comes from a phrase from the last verse of [[W. B. Yeats|Yeats’s]] near-[[Solipsism|solipsist]] poem,
::: Compelling it to study
:::
:::
▲::: In a learned school <br>
:::
:::
::: The death of friends, or death
▲::: Testy delirium <br>
:::
:::
:::
:::
▲::: Or a bird's sleepy cry <br>
▲::: Among the deepening shades. <br>
Several months after the McWhinnie production in which he was himself heavily involved, Beckett had the opportunity to act as his own director in the [[German (language)|German]] version, '''''Nur noch Gewölk''''', for [[Süddeutscher Rundfunk]]. In this production he made one or two minor changes but the main one was to include the whole last [[stanza]] above rather than the four lines in the original.
But why this particular line from the poem? Is it to do with the nature of [[cloud]]s?
==Structure==
===Characters===
The director, Sidney Homan, defines the four
▲The director, Sidney Homan, defines the four ‘characters’ in this work:<ref>Homan, S., ''Filming Beckett’s Television Plays: A Director’s Experience'' (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1992), p 68</ref>
* M is the poet in reflective mode
* M1 is the poet in his active mode in the world
* W is his [[muse]] or the principle of poetry as it mediates between the material and the imaginative worlds
* V is the
===Stages===
Unlike ''[[Quad (play)|Quad]]'', which utilises a single fixed camera throughout, there are a total of sixty camera shots in this piece,
▲Unlike ''[[Quad]]'', which utilises a single fixed camera throughout, there are a total of sixty camera shots in this piece, “the shape of an hour or a minute”,<ref>Brater, E., ‘Intertextuality’ in Oppenheim, L., (Ed.) ''Palgrave Advances in Samuel Beckett Studies'' (London: Palgrave, 2004), p 37</ref> which can be organised into four groups or stages. There are only two televisual techniques used throughout the play: fade and dissolve.
====Stage 1====
('''Directions 1-19'''): The first stage focuses on the past, those times when the woman did appear and M could be creative as a consequence.
====Stage 2====
('''Directions 20-26'''): The second stage examines where the poet is presently. There are three areas, just offstage in the darkness.
* West is the outside world in which he spends his days wandering.
* East is his closet where he exchanges his greatcoat for his robe.
* North, to the rear of the stage, is his
====Stage 3====
('''Directions 27-52'''): In the third stage the poet lists four possibilities:
* The woman can appear and then vanish immediately.
* The woman can appear and linger.
* The woman can appear and
* The woman can fail to appear at all, the most common scenario.
====Stage 4====
('''Direction 53-60'''): In the final stage, the poet actually
▲('''Direction 53-60'''): In the final stage, the poet actually “finds success, almost as an ironic consequence of his despair. The woman appears and, this time, V is able to [recite] all four lines from Yeats’s poem, rather than the truncated and hence frustrating single line of the television play’s title.”<ref>Homan, S., ''Filming Beckett’s Television Plays: A Director’s Experience'' (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1992)
▲==Synopsis==
▲The play opens in darkness. It fades up to a shot from behind of M, a “man sitting on [an] invisible stool and bowed over [an] invisible table.”<ref>Beckett, S., ''Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett'' (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 257</ref> He is wearing his [[nightshirt|gown]] and [[Nightcap (garment)|nightcap]]. This is the only way we ever see him in the present, bowed over his table. The camera returns to this image fifteen times throughout the play.
▲We hear a voice and assume it belongs to the man we are looking at, at least it is his thoughts we hear. He is remembering the circumstances under which he has seen the woman in the past. While he remembers we see M1, his remembered/imagined self, go through the motions described, at least what little actually takes place in the circle of light. He changes his mind about what causes her to appear. At first he says, “When I thought of her…”<ref>Beckett, S., ''Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett'' (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 259</ref> but he realises that is inaccurate; the woman simply ''appears'' to him, and always at night. He goes over his routine, carefully starting from his return home after walking the roads since daybreak:<ref>Both in his biography of Beckett (''Damned to Fame'' p 634) and in a chapter within his book ''Frescoes of the Skull'' (p 261), James Knowlson draws a parallel with this man and the type of characters written by [[John Millington Synge|Synge]].</ref> he enters, goes to the closet and swaps his [[greatcoat]] and hat for a nightgown and cap, then he enters his sanctum and tries to summon her, always without joy, whereupon at dawn he dresses again and heads out on the road.
▲The voice lists the three instances listed above where the woman has appeared to him in the past. When he reaches the third one the camera cuts to the woman’s face, “reduced as far as possible to eyes and a mouth”<ref>Beckett, S., ''Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett'' (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 257</ref>, which mouths silently along with the voice, “…clouds…but the clouds…of the sky…”<ref>Beckett, S., ''Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett'' (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 261</ref> The man then realises there is a fourth case, but not really a fourth ''[[per se]]'' because so much of the time, by far the greatest amount of the time, nothing happens, the woman never even appears.
▲Although from the opening scene it seems like he spends every night willing the woman to appear, this isn’t the case. Sometimes he grows weary and occupies himself with other things “more … rewarding, such as … [[cube root]]s”<ref>Beckett, S., ''Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett'' (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 261</ref> or sits absorbed with nothing – which he describes as a mine – like the man in ''[[Film (film)|Film]]''.
▲We see M1 prepare for the road again and leave. The voice says, “Right,” then the woman’s face appears once more and the voice repeats the final four lines of Yeats’s poem. This time, however, the woman does not mouth the words. Her face dissolves, we are left with the man sitting at his invisible table where we began and everything fades to black.
==Interpretation==
In a number of other works Beckett has felt the need to split an individual into separate aspects of that character, e.g. ''[[Words and Music (play)|Words and Music]]'', where the writer, his words and his emotions are all represented by separate characters.
The man is a poet,
▲In a number of other works Beckett has felt the need to split an individual into separate aspects of that character, e.g. ''[[Words and Music (play)|Words and Music]]'', where the writer, his words and his emotions are all represented by separate characters. “In ''... but the clouds ...'', however, Beckett is concerned not with fragments of the self, but the whole person. The [[protagonist]], M, sees himself whole, (as at the end of ''Film'') held in the light circle of the imagination … The action of ''... but the clouds ...'' consists of M reliving past experience with such intensity that he can see himself performing his daily routine.”<ref>Pountney, R., ''Theatre of Shadows: Samuel Beckett’s Drama 1956-1976'', p 204</ref>
Krapp sat at a real table and heard a real voice, albeit himself as a younger man. The man in ''... but the clouds ...'' sits at an invisible table unable to write. Everything he encounters is outside a circle of dim, suffused light. This gives the play a dreamlike quality, the circle of light becomes a kind of
▲The man is a poet, “caught in the writer’s trap, the expectation of [[Artistic inspiration|inspiration]].”<ref>Pountney, R., ''Theatre of Shadows: Samuel Beckett’s Drama'' 1956-1976 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1988), p 205</ref> The woman seems to be his muse. It may be Beckett is personifying her as a woman only in the abstract sense but it is just as likely, considering Beckett’s most famous writer-character, ''[[Krapp's Last Tape|Krapp]]'', that she is also a lost love, a once-literal muse. Krapp’s imagination is impotent though. M has not reached that stage. He is still having occasional flashes on inspiration. And this must have been very much how the seventy-year-old Beckett felt himself; writing was becoming increasing difficult for him. Either way, “although not quite a character, she is … both an object of desire and a force beyond desire.”<ref>Worth, K., ‘Women in Beckett’s Radio and Television Plays’ in Ben-Zvi, L., (Ed.) ''Women in Beckett: Performance and Critical Perspectives'' (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992), p 242</ref>
Not all of
▲Krapp sat at a real table and heard a real voice, albeit himself as a younger man. The man in ''... but the clouds ...'' sits at an invisible table unable to write. Everything he encounters is outside a circle of dim, suffused light. This gives the play a dreamlike quality, the circle of light becomes a kind of ‘no place’ where this daily ritual takes place. The only voice is the one inside his head. Even the roads take on an abstract quality; they are neither to nor from anywhere unlike the travel options in ''[[Cascando]]'', for example.
The fact that the woman may well have been real, rather than some [[Stereotype|stereotypical]] projection of
▲Not all of Krapp’s actions take place at his table, we hear him pouring drinks and attempting to sing in the darkness surrounding his stage as a means of distracting himself from the task in hand; in ''Quad'', the players’ only reality is within the lighted square as is the case with the women of ''[[Come and Go]]'' but in ''... but the clouds ...'' all the real action takes place in the darkness, the central circle of light is a place of transition only.
▲The fact that the woman may well have been real, rather than some [[Stereotype|stereotypical]] projection of M’s ideal woman, is suggested by the line, “With those unseeing eyes I so begged ''when alive'' to look at me.”<ref>Beckett, S., ''Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett'' (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 260</ref> The camera focuses on the woman’s face while these lines are spoken. Interestingly, Eric Brater argues that "what he longs for is not the beloved but the image of his beloved, the evocative [[metaphor]] he has made of her. His is an exquisite despair. In his secret ceremony Beckett’s male figure all but revels in it."<ref>Brater, E. in Ben-Zvi, (Ed.) ‘Studies in the Theatre: Samuel Beckett Issue’ ''ASSAPH'' 17-18, 2003, p 193</ref> Because the old man realises he cannot physically recall his beloved, he makes do with [[simulation]]; he torments himself with memories of what it was like when she came before. M is not only trying to remember, he is trying "to remember the way in which he used to remember."<ref>Katz, D., ‘Mirror Resembling Screens: Yeats, Beckett and ''... but the clouds ...''’ in ''The Savage Eye / L'Oeil Fauve : New Essays on Beckett's Television Plays'' (Amsterdam; Atlanta, GA:Rodopi, 1995) (SBT; 4), p 83</ref>
The man is a poet but he is also – and unexpectedly – a [[mathematician]], a rational man. Numbers play a significant part in
▲“For Beckett and for Yeats, there is a difference between remembering and not remembering, but both writers remind us that not remembering does not necessarily equal forgetting. That which is not consciously 'remembered' by an individual can still return to impose itself is a variety of ways, one of which both Yeats and Beckett qualify as a kind of haunting.”<ref>Katz, D., ‘Mirror Resembling Screens: Yeats, Beckett and ''... but the clouds ...''’ in ''The Savage Eye / L'Oeil Fauve : New Essays on Beckett's Television Plays'' (Amsterdam; Atlanta, GA:Rodopi, 1995) (SBT; 4), p 83</ref> This makes one viewer’s comment as to the nature of W all the more interesting when they call her “the character who appears but isn’t really there – she only gives the appearance of an appearance.”<ref>Homan, S., ''Filming Beckett’s Television Plays: A Director’s Experience'' (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1992), p 77</ref>
He would prefer that the woman appears when he thinks of her, that there should exist a clear correlation between conscious thought and realisation but his is not the case. He is forced to modify the theory he is testing acknowledging that the
▲The man is a poet but he is also – and unexpectedly – a [[mathematician]], a rational man. Numbers play a significant part in Beckett’s works (particularly the number three as it was a favourite of [[Dante Alighieri|Dante’s]]). “M’s addiction to numbers – the four cases, the reference to cube roots, the two [[Statistics|statistical]] possibilities given for the fourth case – [can be] explained as a defensive posture. M must know that the woman’s appearance is at [[Randomness|random]] and defies [[logic]]. His careful efforts to establish mathematically the exact and proper conditions for her appearance are merely an attempt to give order to an experience he knows, deep inside, is beyond rational [[measurement]] or [[prediction]].”<ref>Homan, S., ''Filming Beckett’s Television Plays: A Director’s Experience'' (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1992), p 75</ref>
▲He would prefer that the woman appears when he thinks of her, that there should exist a clear correlation between conscious thought and realisation but his is not the case. He is forced to modify the theory he is testing acknowledging that the woman’s face merely “appeared” and those appearances were always at night. By the end of the play “he has done all he can do, he is now at the mercy of [[Divine Providence|Providence]]. The woman will appear ''if'', pleased with his efforts, she decides to appear.”<ref>Homan, S., ''Filming Beckett’s Television Plays: A Director’s Experience'' (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1992), p 76</ref> There is an element of ritual to the piece, another common element of Beckett’s theatre. Perhaps it is the only way he can feel he can retain some element of control over – or at least involvement in – the process.
:
▲Eric Brater suggests that ''... but the clouds ...'' has more in common with Yeats that simply ''The Tower'':
▲: “Like the characters imagined in the play ''The Words upon the Window Pane'', the ‘he’ we meet in ''... but the clouds ...'' sits [[trance]]-like at a [[séance]], calling out to a face and a voice to appear: ‘Look at me’ and then, echoing [[Hamlet]]’s appeal to a quite different ghost, ‘Speak to me.’ A scene from Yeats is all but impossible to dismiss:”<ref>Brater, E., ‘Intertextuality’ in Oppenheim, L., (Ed.) ''Palgrave Advances in Samuel Beckett Studies'' (London: Palgrave, 2004), p 37</ref>
::: Mrs Mallet: I saw her lips move.<ref>
▲::: Dr Trench: I thought she was speaking.<br>
▲::: Mrs Mallet: I saw her lips move.<ref>''The Collected Plays of W B Yeats'' (New York: Macmillan, 1966), p 385</ref>
▲“As Katharine Worth has pointed out, in Yeatsian terminology ‘shades’ [the final word of Yeats’s poem] necessarily conjures up thoughts of [[spirit]]s or [[ghost]]s along with the onset of evening, and Beckett’s play only reinforces this somewhat understated [[nuance]].”<ref>Katz, D., ‘Mirror Resembling Screens: Yeats, Beckett and ''... but the clouds ...''’ in ''The Savage Eye / L'Oeil Fauve : New Essays on Beckett's Television Plays'' (Amsterdam; Atlanta, GA:Rodopi, 1995) (SBT; 4), p 83</ref> The prevalence of ‘ghosts’ in Beckett’s later writings hardly needs commenting on.<ref>See Fraser, G., ‘No More Than Ghosts Make: The Hauntology and Gothic Minimalism of Beckett's Late Work’ in ''MFS Modern Fiction Studies'' - Volume 46, Number 3, Fall 2000, pp. 772-785</ref>
[[John Calder]] in his review of the three plays shown on BBC2 had this to say about ''... but the clouds ...'':
:
Clearly the process in this play is open to interpretation. Is the process wholly internal, the man remembering someone real from his past or is he trying to conjure up some external manifestation of her, her ghost? And what is his motive for trying to evoke her? Is it simply to satisfy memory, to wallow in the moment awhile as Krapp does, or is she in some way his muse, an enabling force that makes the words come? Either way it is clear that he cannot control events directly, by the power of his [[Will (philosophy)|will]], things take place at best, as a byproduct almost of his actions, but more likely they are entirely out of his control and all he can do is wait on them.
==Music==
A version with music by [[Martin Pearlman]] was produced at the [[92nd Street Y]] in New York for the Beckett centennial in 2006.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://blog.92y.org/index.php/weblog/2006/03/29/ |title=92nd Street Y, Samuel Becket at 100, Three Plays |access-date=2010-03-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080416164759/http://blog.92y.org/index.php/weblog/2006/03/29/ |archive-date=2008-04-16 |url-status=dead}}</ref>
==References==
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{{Beckett}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:But The Clouds}}
[[Category:1977 plays]]
[[Category:Theatre of the Absurd]]
[[Category:Plays by Samuel Beckett
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