That Time

An old man, the ‘listener’, sits motionless on a chair on stage: only his head is illuminated. He is listening to three voices coming from three unspecified directions. Voice A talks about adolescence, Voice B speaks of love and Voice C of old age. These three dialogues which merge continuously without interruption – with the exception of two exactly specified pauses of seven seconds – consist of spotlighted fragments recalling experiences, disappointments, vain hopes and failure and together create the image of an individual who since early childhood has never succeeded in escaping from isolation and compulsive self-reflection.
Beckett’s play was published in April 1976; the first performance took place in London on 20 May of the same year and Beckett himself directed the German premiere at the Schiller-Theater in Berlin on 1 October 1976. Fortner’s score is marked with the handwritten final date 28 December 1976. He adheres to Beckett’s staging and only permits the ‘listener’ to appear on stage while the voices come from offstage. Fortner divides these voices between two singers – Voice A is undertaken by a baritone and Voice B by a mezzo-soprano – and an actress who recites Voice C.
Three instruments are allocated to the three voices: the piano is assigned to Voice A and is the most elaborate instrumental part: clusters and a strong rhythmic accentuation express the development of the ‘listener’ from earliest childhood to a state of resignation. Voice B is reinforced by the guitar; the music is based on three five- to six-part chords from which chromatic sequences and clusters develop. The (spoken) Voice C is assigned to the harpsichord which plays music based on a twelve-tone row whose mutations become rhythmically and harmonically progressively more compressed.