Breath - a Play

While discussing ‘The Theatre of the Absurd’ and Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’, we viewed film version of his shortest play ‘Breath’ - a thirty-seconds play. Would you like to take challenge to give interpretation of this shortest play? Give your interpretation after reading the play and a few video versions (scroll down to read-view), in the comment section below this blog-post.

A still from the version of the play - Breath

The script of the play:

CURTAIN Up

1. Faint light on stage littered with miscellaneous rubbish. Hold about five seconds.
2. Faint brief cry and immediately inspiration and slow increase of light together reaching maximum - together in about ten seconds. Silence and hold for about five seconds.
3. Expiration and slow decrease of light together reaching minimum together (light as in 1) in about ten seconds and immediately cry as before. Silence and hold about five seconds.

CURTAIN Down

Clue to interpret the play:

Absurd: philosophy meaningless: lacking any meaning that would give purpose to life

the notion that existence is absurd

meaninglessness: the condition of living in a meaningless universe where life has no purpose, especially as a concept in some 20th-century philosophical movements.

Existentialism:
philosophical movement centred on individual existence: a philosophical movement begun in the 19th century that denies that the universe has any intrinsic meaning or purpose.

It requires people to take responsibility for their own actions and shape their own destinies.

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