My first exposure to Samuel Beckett was in a French literature class at LaSalle College (now university) where I completed my first two years of college. I didn’t even realize at the time that he was an Irishman until years later. While he was a contemporary of James Joyce, he did not appear to be particularly fond of his homeland, and wrote the bulk of his works in Paris.

He is probably best known for his much-analyzed Waiting for Godot, famous for two acts devoid of action, which  has been compared to everything from religion to existentialism.

The work that I am reviewing today is a 14 minute-one act play, which premiered in 1981 at SUNY Buffalo (the university where I completed the degree I began at LaSalle). This short, but impactful play features just one character, a woman who is either near her death, or perhaps on the other side. She sits in a rocker, center stage. She says nothing, but her own voice is played back to her in the form of narration. The dialogue is repetitive and poetic, it’s form and cadence imitating that of the rocker.

As with most of Beckett’s work, the dialogue is spare and nuanced, expecting the audience to do more than sit back and wait to be entertained.