All That Fall is a one-act radio play by Samuel Beckett produced following a requestIt has been reported that Beckett wrote this play following a commission from the BBC. This is not correct. Hugh Kenner advises that Beckett had written only some of his works at the suggestion of others and that these did not figure among his very best. Kenner remarks, "But suggestions – not commissions, since he will not regard an arrangement as binding until he has in fact been able to execute the work – suggestions, then, have led him into adventures with several media he would likely not otherwise have explored." – Kenner, H., A Reader’s Guide to Samuel Beckett, (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1973), p 159 from the BBC. It was written in English and completed in September 1956. The autograph copy is titled Lovely Day for the Races. It was published in French, in a translation by Robert Pinget revised by Beckett himself,Samuel Beckett, Georges Craig (editor), The Letters of Samuel Beckett. Volume 3; 1957–1965, (Cambridge University Press, 2014), letter from Beckett to Christian Lugdivsen, 6 August 1957. as Tous ceux qui tombent.
When the germ of All that Fall came to him, Beckett wrote to a friend, Nancy Cunard:
"Never thought about radio play technique but in the dead of t’other night got a nice gruesome idea full of cartwheels and dragging of feet and puffing and panting which may or may not lead to something."Letter to Nancy Cunard, 5 June 1956. Quoted in Knowlson, J., ‘'Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett'’ (London: Bloomsbury, 1996),:p 428
Although the play was written quickly and with few redrafts, the subject matter was deeply personal, causing Beckett to sink into what he called "a whirl of depression"Samuel Beckett to Barney Rosset, 23 August 1956. Quoted in Knowlson, J., ‘'Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett'’ (London: Bloomsbury, 1996), p 430 when he wrote to his US publisher Barney Rosset in August. In fact, in September "he cancelled all his appointments in Paris for a week simply because he felt wholly incapable of facing people",Knowlson, J., ‘'Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett'’ (London: Bloomsbury, 1996), pp 430,431 and worked on the script until its completion.
It was first broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on 13 January 1957, featuring Mary O'Farrell as Maddy Rooney with J. G. Devlin as her husband, Dan. Soon-to-be Beckett regulars, Patrick Magee and Jack MacGowran also had small parts. The producer was Donald McWhinnie.
Synopsis The trip there It is the first work by Beckett in which a woman is the central character. In this case it is a gritty, "overwhelmingly capacious",Worth, K., 'Women in Beckett’s Radio and Television Plays' in Ben-Zvi, L., (Ed.) Women in Beckett: Performance and Critical Perspectives (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992), p 236 outspoken, Irish septuagenarian, Maddy Rooney, plagued by "rheumatism and childlessness".Beckett, S., Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 24 "Beckett emphasised to Billie Whitelaw that Maddy had an Irish accent:
'I said, "Like yours," and he said, "No, no, no, an Irish accent." I realised he didn't know he had an Irish accent, and that was the music he heard in his head.'"Gussow, M., 'An Immediate Bonding With Beckett: An Actress's Memoirs' in The New York Times, 24 April 1996
The opening scene finds Maddy trudging down a country road towards the station called "Boghill"."Beckett probably named the station Boghill because of the proximity to a bogfield known locally as 'the bog’ lying between the chemist’s shop and Hainault Street." – O’Brien, E., The Beckett Country (Dublin: The Black Cat Press, 1986), p 350 n 48 It's her husband's birthday. She has already given him a tie but decides to surprise him by meeting him off the 12:30 train. It is a fine June morning and must be a Saturday, since her husband is leaving his office at noon rather than five. In the distance the sounds of rural animals are heard.
She moves with difficulty. She hears chamber music coming from an old house, Schubert's "Death and the Maiden".The text only mentions Death and the Maiden, the title of a lied by Schubert, (See Death and the Maiden) the melody of which forms the basis for the second movement of his String Quartet No.14, D810. In the first BBC recording it is the string quartet which is heard not the original lied. She stops, listens to the recording, and even murmurs along with it before proceeding.
The first of her three encounters with men is meeting the dung carrier, Christy, who tries to sell her a "small load of … stydung".Beckett, S., ‘'Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett'’ (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 12 She tells him she will consult her husband. The man's cart is being pulled by a "cleg-tormented" hinny, which shows some reluctance to move on and needs to be whipped. As she heads off, Maddy's thoughts return to "Minnie! Little Minnie!"Beckett, S., ‘'Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett'’ (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 13
The smell of laburnumThe laburnum tree (Laburnum anagyroides) is a tree which, in myth and legend, is associated with Aphrodite: and was an important symbol of the powerful Love Goddess and of love and security for the poet Sylvia Plath. She associated it with her beloved father, calling it "my father's bean tree" (Maenad, Sylvia Plath, Collected Poems, p 133 ); and, in The Beekeeper's Daughter (Sylvia Plath, Collected Poems, p 118 ), she captured the sensuous, sensual beauty of this "Golden Rain Tree" which, as a bringer of life and death, exhibits (she wrote admiringly) "a queenship no mother can contest". That also clarifies Maddy's comment on the way home about "golden drizzle" (Beckett, S., ‘'Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett'’ (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 36). distracts her. Suddenly, old Mr Tyler is upon her, ringing his cycle bell. Whilst relating how his daughter's operation has rendered her unable to bear children, they are almost knocked down by Connolly's van, which covers them "white with dust from head to foot". Maddy again bemoans the loss of Minnie but refuses to be comforted by Tyler, who rides off, despite realising that his rear tyre is flat.
Lastly an "old admirer",Beckett, S., ‘'Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett'’ (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 17 Mr Slocum, a racecourse clerk, pulls up in his "limousine"A limousine is also a type of carriage corresponding with the railway carriage her husband is in. to offer her a ride. She is too fat and awkward to climb in alone so Slocum pushes her in from behind. While doing so, her frock gets caught in the door. He tries to start the car but it has died. After applying the choke he does manage to get going and, no sooner has he done so, he runs over and kills a hen, which Maddy feels the need to eulogise.
At each stage of the journey, the technology she encounters advances but, despite that, each means of locomotion is beset by problems, foreshadowing the problem with the train: she finds walking difficult and is forced to sit down, Christy needs to whip his hinny to make her go, Tyler's tyre goes flat, and Slocum's engine dies. All the relatives mentioned in that section are female and all the modes of transport are also referred to as females.
The station At the station, Slocum calls on the porter, Tommy, for assistance to extricate his passenger, after which he drives away, "crucifying his gearbox."Beckett, S., ‘'Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett'’ (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 20
Beckett told Billie Whitelaw that Maddy "is in a state of abortive explosiveness".Oppenheim, L., (Ed.) Directing Beckett, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994), p 196. In her interview with Linda Ben-Zvi, Whitelaw says Beckett used the expression "explosive constipation" which she explained she took to mean, "She’s terribly constipated; she has all these feelings, and wants to explode, to release them, but she can’t. She just tries to hang on in there." – Ben-Zvi, L., (Ed.) Women in Beckett: Performance and Critical Perspectives (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992), p 7 That becomes apparent when she considers herself ignored. To the boy, Tommy, she says abrasively: "Don’t mind me. Don’t take any notice of me. I do not exist. The fact is well known."Beckett, S., ‘'Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett'’ (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 19 As Ruby Cohn quips, "she endures volubly."Cohn, R., 'The Femme Fatale on Beckett’s Stage' in Ben-Zvi, L., (Ed.) Women in Beckett: Performance and Critical Perspectives (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 1990 p 165
The stationmaster, Mr Barrell, asks after Mrs Rooney's health. She confesses that she should really still be in bed. We hear of the demise of Mr Barrell's father, who died shortly after retiring, a tale that reminds Maddy again of her own woes. She notes that the weather has taken a change for the worse, with the wind picking up and rain due.
Miss Fitt approaches, so immersed in humming a hymn she doesn't see Maddy at first. As her name indicates, Miss Fitt is a self-righteous misfit. After some discussion, she condescends to help the old woman up the stairs to the platform, primarily because "it is the Protestant thing to do."Beckett, S., ‘'Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett'’ (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 23
Unusually, the train is late. The noise of the station becomes louder but the first arrival is an anticlimax, because it is the oft-mentioned "up mail". Dan's train comes in moments afterwards. Maddy panics. She can't find her husband because he has been led to the gents by Jerry,The two boys in the railway station call to mind Tom and Jerry. the boy who normally helps him to the taxi. Tight-fisted Dan chides her for not cancelling Jerry but still pays his penny fee. He refuses, however, to discuss the reason for the train's lateness. Not without some difficulty – her husband is also not a well man – they descend the stairs and begin the trek home.
On her journey to the station, Maddy only had to compete with one person at a time, each an old man. Now she is faced with a crowd. Rather than the flat open countryside, she has to contend with a mountainous climb, referring to the stairs as a "cliff". Her husband calls them a "precipice" and Miss Fitt compares them to the "Matterhorn", a mountain that for years inspired fear in climbers. Also, the means of transport that are mentioned, the Titanic, the Lusitania and the train, are modes of mass transport, and the level of danger shifts from the inconvenient to the potentially lethal. All the relatives mentioned in that segment are now male.
The walk home
The weather is worsening. The thought of getting home spurs them on. Dan imagines sitting by the fire in his dressing gown with his wife reading aloud from Effi Briest.Beckett read this with Peggy Sinclair, his first love, who died of tuberculosis in 1933. The novel also makes a key appearance in Krapp’s Last Tape. The Lynch twins jeer at them from a distance. Dan shakes his stick and chases them off. Previously, the twins have pelted the old couple with mud. "Did you ever wish to kill a child?"Beckett, S., ‘'Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett'’ (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 31 Dan asks her, then admits to having to resist the impulse within himself. That makes his comment shortly after, about being alone in his compartment — "I made no attempt to restrain myself"Beckett, S., ‘'Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett'’ (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p 32 — all the more suspicious. It also focuses attention on his remarks about the pros and cons of retirement: one of the negatives he brings up has to do with enduring their neighbour's children.