Beckett’s thirty-five second play was sent on the back of a postcard to New York in 1969, where it was encorporated in an erotic revue. It consists of a silence, a cry, an inhalation, a silence, an exhalation, a cry, and a silence. The cry is pre-recorded and on stage is only rubbish. This mini-lecture considers whether this play should be read as an allegory for life, how it can be produced, whether it should be filmed, whether it is minimalist in the same sense as white canvases are – and whether it is ultimately a joke on us: rubbish.
