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LLEWELLYN BROWN
asserted that May’s pacing in Footfalls was, paradoxically, the most important
element of this play," in spite of the spoken texts remarkable beauty. Nauman,
for his part, explained the origin of some of his videos in Gestalt theory,
which drew his attention to the importance of the apparently meaningless
and insignificant action of moving around a closed space."
BECKETT’S “WATT WALK”
Beckett often has his characters (in the Three Novels) or players (Quad)
execute geometrically ordered movements through space. Such arbitrary
constraints seem to impose a brutal discipline on the body’s functioning.
Among Beckett’s uses of the walking motif, his description of Watt seems to
be one likely source for Nauman’s version:®
Watt’s way of advancing due east, for example, was to turn his bust as far as
possible towards the north and at the same time to fling out his right leg as far as
possible towards the south, and then to turn his bust as far as possible towards the
south, and at the same time to fling out his left leg as far as possible towards the
north, and then again to turn his bust as far as possible towards the north and to
fling out his right leg as far as possible towards the south, [...] and so on, over and
over again, many many times, until he reached his destination, and could sit down.
So, standing first on one leg, and then on the other, he moved forward, a headlong
tardigrade, in a straight line.”
Watt’s manner of walking manifests a form of comical disarticulation, rather
than allowing for coordinated action where individual components combine
within a harmonious movement. It contrasts with the apparently spontaneous
gesture, where the body remains subservient to the aim of going from one
point to another, leaving the walker free to contemplate the space traversed.
Here, Watt’s walk displays a mixture of abstract and concrete elements,
which succeed in breaking up his movements. His walk is rigidly set within
the abstract coordinates of the four cardinal directions: west however remains
° 19 February 1976 (in Billie Whitelaw: Billie Whitelaw... Who He?, New York, St. Martin’s,
1996, 139).
7 Nauman in Kraynak: Please pay attention please, 166.
8 Géraldine Sfez also notes this passage from Molloy: “There is rapture, or there should be,
in the motion crutches give. It is a series of little flights, skimming the ground. You take
off, you land, through the thronging sound in wind and limb, who have to fasten one foot
to the ground before they dare lift up the other.” Samuel Beckett: Molloy in Three Novels,
New York, Grove, 1965, 59; Géraldine Sfez — Bruce Nauman — Samuel Beckett: Le corps
mis 4 l’épreuve de la répétition, Limit(e) Beckett: Beckett at the Limit(e) Vol. 0 (Spring 2010),
82-103.
° Samuel Beckett: Watt, New York, Grove, 1953, 30.
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