...but the clouds... by Samuel Beckett: Installation and Presentation

The piece I will be directing this semester is ...but the clouds... by Samuel Beckett. This is a short "play for television" featuring a man remembering his encounters (?) with a woman and his solitude and tension surrounding those encounters. The man goes through the memories of the physical motions he would go through—which the audience bears witness to—as well as the face of the woman and the sparse words she would say, “. . . but the clouds of the sky . . . when the horizon fades . . . or a bird’s sleepy cry . . . among the deepening shades . . .” For my presentation of ...but the clouds..., I'll be flipping it into a one-person piece talking about the memory and longing for a past or future version of yourself. I want to explore the questions where is the line between imagination and memory? What is helpful and harmful of living in your mind, within fantasy and idea as opposed to external, physical experience?

In my installation, I am exploring the reflection parts of this narrative and vision. I created a fractal reality space with mirrors and dark surfaces that contort our perception of physical space. Where do the reflection of light begin and the physical object end? I then threw in lipstick to be an object of desire that is just as elusive as the reality that this space contains. The final aspect of my installation is the metatheatrical, self-reflective element of screenshots of the process of capturing the piece itself which I hope to be a full part of the piece I direct.

Take a look through my presentation about the piece here!

In our discussion in class after my presentation, a few specificities of my vision came to light. This piece is looking into how we can differentiate and try to connect different realities and establish experiences as realities. I am really interested in the potential to disconnect what is being made and seen from reality and objectivity as we know it. With the possibility of having a live voice-over, this separation of realities would be amplified because we'd be experiencing a reality that was in the past (the recorded video) with a presently experienced reality (the voiceover). However, with editing and the added layer of being on Zoom, the realities are even further separated and it's possible that we would have even less a grasp on what is happening. How fun!