The Powerful Message of Beckett's That Time

The Powerful Message of Beckett's That Time

Samuel Beckett's That Time is a play that delves deep into the human psyche, exposing the audience to the potential effect and consequence of one continually living in the past. Lack of punctuation and fragmented repetition make the play rather challenging to grasp yet effectively mirrors the purpose that Beckett has intended in this work. In That Time Beckett dramatically illustrates several common downfalls to human nature, which ultimately act as plagues against the mind, such as the avoidance of the present in the continual analysis and obsession of the past, and the uncomforting effect of silence. Through the use of stream-of-consciousness and three alternating voices which flow almost entirely without a break, Beckett truly taps into the core of human consciousness and one of man's most extreme fears, the fear of the void, of nothingness, of never being able to recreate "that time" again.

As is common to Beckett's work, the stage setting for this play relies very little upon flashy backdrops and a multitude of characters, and more so upon the mood that the scene creates. He presents only the bare necessity, achieving a scene that is able to expose stark honesty.

Curtains. Stage in darkness. Fade up to listener's face about ten feet above stage level midstage off center. Old white face, long flaring white hair as if seen from above outspread. Voices A B C are his own coming to him from both sides and above. They modulate back and forth without any break in general flow except when silence indicated (Collected Shorter Plays 228)

The simplicity of the scene places all of the emphasis upon the voices and those rare moments in which there is silence, thus, pulling the audience directly into the mind of the bodiless head. Beckett has utilized this technique in several of his other plays, such as Krapp's Last Tape in which the setting is merely "a small table, the two drawers of which open towards the audience. Sitting at the table, i.e. across from the drawers, a wearish old man" (55). This effect is also present in Eh Joe, a television play by Beckett in which "Joe's opening movements followed by cameras at constant remove, Joe full length in frame throughout" (Casando and Other Short Dramatic Pieces 35).