That Time

For the song "That Time" by Regina Spektor see Begin to Hope

That Time is a one-act play by Samuel Beckett, written in English between 8 June 1974 and August 1975. It was specially written for actor Patrick Magee, who delivered its first performance, on the occasion of Beckett's seventieth birthday celebration, at London's Royal Court Theatre on 20 May 1976.

On stage the audience is confronted with the head of man in his dotage about ten feet above the stage and slightly off-centre; everything else is in darkness. The man has flaring white hair and remains silent apart from his slow and regular breathing which is amplified. Beckett identified the old man as being inspired by Laozi (“that old Chinaman long before Christ” (B3)). In early drafts Beckett has the head resting on a pillow recalling especially the dying, bedridden Malone. The text requires that Listener open and close his eyes (which stay shut for most of the time) and hold a smile – "toothless for preference" – at the very end of the performance.

The actor responds to three sets of reminiscences that come at him from all sides according to a predetermined sequence. These voices describe a life of self-induced isolation and retrospection and each of these three journeys into the past reinforces his sense of solitude. For company, he has made up stories and now, after years suffering from "the Time cancer", has considerable difficulty differentiating between fact and fiction.

Beckett required that these monologues, although featuring the same actor, were to be pre-recorded and not presented live. He also specified that the voices come from three locations preferably, from the left, the right and from above the actor and that the switch from one to the other be smooth and yet clearly noticeable. He did not stipulate, however, that any effort be made to differentiate between the voices unless it were impractical to have them coming from three distinct locations; in that instance he asked for a change in pitch to be used to distinguish one from another.

"The B story has to do with the young man, the C story is the story of the old man and the A story is that of the man in middle age," he explained.

The significance of the final smile is not clear and a source of much speculation. The fact that the 'natural order' (BAC – see below) is restored and maintained in the third round is an unlikely reason because Beckett changed the pattern only in the last revision, and so it is a doubtful explanation for the smile that had been previously included in earlier drafts. “Is it a … smile of relief and contentment that at last all the torment is nearly over? A wry reflection on the insignificance of the individual human existence in the context of infinity?” Does Listener smile because he finally recognizes himself in the different selves of his memory? Beckett has not explained. All that can be said for certain is that the story – indeed the man’s life – has “come and gone … in no time” (C12) words which echo Vladimir’s at the end of Waiting for Godot: “Astride of a grave and a difficult birth.” In the 1977 German production, directed by Beckett himself, he did make one addition to the final scene: Klaus "Herm’s smile ... merged with his audible panting into a single scornful exhale-laugh – Beckett’s last minute inspiration."

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Wikipedia