‘Repeat play’: Musical Minimalism in the Processes of Samuel Beckett’s Late Drama

Abstract

This essay promotes a focused evaluation of Samuel Beckett’s work in the context of musical minimalism, which it identifies as a closely related and aesthetically significant point of comparison, sharing an attitude towards a work of art as an unfolding process rather than a static product. Beginning with a comparative analysis of Play and Philip Glass’s 1963 score, the origins of Beckett’s connection with minimalist music are explored, with characteristically ‘Beckettian’ ideas shown to be at work in Glass’s compositional idiom. Then, looking ahead twenty years, Beckett’s Quad is examined in light of minimalist music by Steve Reich, whose technologically motivated compositions written in the years between Play and Quad are given as appropriate equivalents for many of the tele-play’s formal peculiarities. By examining Beckett’s work in connection with the unique achievements of minimalist music, we can better define our understanding of Beckett as a ‘minimalist’ working concurrently with a particular artistic movement. Additionally, we can identify common artistic concerns in his work and the music of Glass and Reich, in which highly repetitive patterns, often aided by technology, are employed to emphasise the interrelated processes of conception, performance, and interpretation at work within a piece of art.