Ohio Impromptu

Ohio Impromptu is a “playlet” by Samuel Beckett. Written in English in 1980, it began as a favour to Stan 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 9th 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 image; 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... full article at wikipedia