Ohio Impromptu

Ohio Impromptu is a "playlet" by Samuel Beckett.

Written in English in 1980, it began as a favour to S.E. Gontarski, who requested a dramatic piece to be performed at an academic symposium in Columbus, Ohio in honour of Beckett’s seventy-fifth birthday. Beckett was uncomfortable writing to order and struggled with the piece for nine months before it was ready. It was first performed on 9 May 1981 at the Stadium II Theater; Alan Schneider directed with David Warrilow as "Reader" and Rand Mitchell as "Listener".

"It is the first Beckett play to present a Doppelgänger on stage, another Beckett pair, but this time seen as mirror images; it belongs to Beckett’s ghost period, where phantoms that echo the haunting quality of memory and nostalgia in his work are seen or described on stage."

Two old men are sitting at right angles to each other beside a rectangular table. They are "[a]s alike in appearance as possible" both wearing long black coats and possessing long white hair. The table is white as are the chairs. The character known as "Listener" is facing the audience but his head is bowed and his face hidden. The other character, "Reader’s" posture is similar the only difference being that he has a book in front of him open at the last pages. A single "[b]lack wide-brimmed hat" is sitting on the table. The characters "could have been borrowed from Rembrandt" or from Gerard ter Borch's Four Spanish Monks although no specific painting was suggested by Beckett himself as an inspiration. "Rubin’s figure-ground experiments" have also been suggested.

As soon as Reader starts to read Listener knocks on the table with his left hand at which point Reader pauses, repeats the last full sentence and then waits for a further knock on the table before recommencing. This continues throughout the entire reading and is reminiscent of "Krapp’s earlier relishing in selected passages from his tapes." "At one point the Listener stops the Reader from turning back to an earlier page to which the text refers, and at another the Reader pauses at a seemingly ungrammatical structure in the text, says, ‘Yes’—his one ‘impromptu’[1] remark—and re-reads it. Other than that one word he only vocalises exactly what is printed on the page.

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Wikipedia