Time Passes:
8 Short Plays by
Samuel Beckett

Information about Beckett's life and his plays.

• Content advisory

• Notes

Beckett's Times: Life, Works, Contexts

The link below will take you to a timeline that places the Irish writer's life and works in historical context.

• Timeline

Quad

Beckett's 1981 play sets four bodies (and their sounds) in motion, exhausting the possibilities of the playing space.

• About 'Quad'

Rockaby

Beckett's 1980 play about an isolated woman who recalls searching in vain for "another like herself."

• About 'Rockaby'

Act
Without
Words II

A 1956 mime piece that Beckett wrote at the request of a dancer.

• About 'AWW II'

Footfalls

Pacing up and down a hallway in the home she has not left for years, a woman listens and speaks to a voice that may be in her mind.

• About 'Footfalls'

What Where

The torturer becomes the tortured -- season after season.

• About 'What Where'

Come and Go

Three childhood friends meet again to sit (and gossip) after a long separation.

• About 'Come and Go'

Catastrophe

A silent figure endures the onstage manipulations of a theatre director and his assistant -- until the last moment, that is.

• Re: 'Catastrophe'

Play

In a no-place that may be purgatory, a beam of light forces a man, his ex-lover, and his wife to narrate their shared past.

• About 'Play'