SAM I AM
The question comes from Samuel Beckett’s Molloy, in a savage monologue about the trappings and fears of love and intimacy. It might be a metaphor, but it’s probably not: What is true love? Can we find it where everything is so frail and frightening, where pain is imminent and trust absolutely required? And if it is true love, why is it so dirty?
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In the end Beckett’s character is like the rest of us, flailing around like a fish out of water, trying desperately to get back to warmer, better climes. He tries to find true love in a vagina, but, for all that it might be where he’s supposed to be, it simply doesn’t hold him tight enough. “I would have preferred an orifice less arid,” he says, doom all through his voice. Then he blows out the candles.
Pike and Baker have not just dug up some obscure pieces to play with. In many ways they have chosen pieces that reflect a truer, perhaps more intimate Beckett than theatergoers usually get to see. After all, Godot and Endgame, though classics in the Beckett canon, are atypical; most of his writing consists of brief, one-act, almost minimalist plays and radio and TV dramas that often defy interpretation. The pieces done by Performers Under Stress, or PUS, in “Sam I Am” are blunt, nervous, and even kind of masturbatory.
“I’m not unhappy enough,” Billy tells him.
