Ghost Trio (play)
It was written in 1975, taped in October 1976 and the first broadcast was on BBC2 on 17 April 1977 as part of The Lively Arts programme Beckett himself entitled Shades.
"[1] It was first published in Journal of Beckett Studies 1 (Winter 1976) and then collected in Ends and Odds (Grove Press, 1976; Faber, 1977).
Its three 'acts' reflect Beethoven's Fifth Piano Trio (Opus 70, #1), known as The Ghost because of the slightly spooky mood of the second movement, Largo.
Geistertrio, directed by Beckett was recorded by Süddeutscher Rundfunk, Stuttgart in May 1977 with Klaus Herm and Irmgard Först and broadcast 1 November 1977.
At the time, whilst Beckett was working on the French translation of Watt, he had the first glimmerings of an idea for another television play.
He discussed this with Josette Hayden who made the following note, which is probably all that remains of the original sketch: Beckett's stage layout is very precise.
She neglects to mention the mirror or the stool but she takes time to emphasise that there is no obvious source of light, that everything is illuminated evenly and that everything in the room is grey.
There then follow a number of close-ups, of the door, the window and the pallet from above, each a rectangular image although the dimensions vary slightly.
There is a man (F - Figure) "seated on a stool, bowed forward, face hidden, clutching a small cassette"[6] recorder, though, at this range, it's not possible to identify it as such until the camera moves to position C and we are presented with a close-up of the man who resembles a "slumping marionette".
There are three instances of music in Act I: when we see each close-up of the door and as the camera moves forward to look at the man and then backwards to its starting position.
"The appearance of the protagonist is thus linked to the entrance of the music with a pathos that strangely contradicts the cold scrutiny of the camera and the emotionally detached tone of the voice.
The woman's voice advises us, "He will now think he hears her,"[10] at which point F turns his head sharply towards the door.
In Beckett's production of the play for German television, the boy does not wear oilskins, nor does he turn to go, but backs slowly away down the corridor.
Beckett made the same change to his 1976 Schiller Theatre production of Waiting for Godot, having the messenger leave the stage backwards.
It recalls an earlier play, That Time, where Listener's final smile results from his release from the three narrating voices, endlessly recounting his past.
When I asked him directly what he meant by this note, he explained that the record sleeve of his own recording (the version made by Daniel Barenboim) linked this Piano Trio with Beethoven’s music for an opera based on Macbeth [...] 'The Ghost' retained for Beckett something of Macbeth’s doom laden atmosphere and involvement in the spirit world.
"[17] "Krapp's Last Tape and Ghost Trio," observes Graley Herren, "are not customarily thought of together; at first sight, the two plays do indeed appear to be quite different.
But each man eventually returns to his intent pose, crouching protectively, even lovingly, over the indispensable instrument of his reverie.
"[19] This interpretation is given weight by James Knowlson who suggests that "the man [is] perhaps about to die;"[20] it may be that all he has been waiting on is the news that his beloved is not coming so he can let go.
His thoughts persistently return to the Largo and the intensity of his feeling is expressed by the music's increases in volume.
"[25] Beckett had been very impressed by Heinrich von Kleist's 1810 essay, Über das Marionettentheatre (On the Marionette Theatre)[26] and his admiration was evidenced when he was rehearsing with Ronald Pickup for the BBC recording of Ghost Trio.
Kleist envisioned the marionette as sublime, transcending not only the limits and flaws of the human body, but of the weight of self-consciousness.
"[27] "In Ghost Trio … the male figure (F) acts as if he were virtually a puppet, turning his head sharply whenever he thinks 'he hears her' and moving around the room, as if he were being controlled by the woman's voice, which issues what are, ambiguously, either commands or, more likely, anticipations of actions.
The figure in the room is somewhere betwixt marionette and man, however, "one sustained, economical and flowing, the other abrupt and jerky … poised midway between two worlds … in spite of everything, a creature bound to a world of matter, not quite the still-life figure that at moments he appears to be.
