A Crystal-Theatre: Beckett, Deleuze and Theatre’s Crystalline Potential

Abstract

We can begin with the following aphorism of Kierkegaard’s:

A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that’s just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it’s a joke. (Kierkegaard, 2004, p. 49)

Kierkegaard’s clown is trapped within his theatricality. The less he plays the clown, the more comic his performance becomes. The more frantically his warnings sound, the louder an audience will applaud his apparent virtuosity. And Kierkegaard tells us that this is how the world will end. We might consider the root of the word ‘apocalypse’ in the Greek apokálypsis, signifying an unveiling or uncovering. The irony, we discover, is that Kierkegaard’s theatrical apocalypse excludes any chance for revelation. Whatever is proclaimed from his stage is sullied by the taint of mere illusion. For his audience at least, the clown’s fire belongs to an imaginary world divided from their own. Even as the theatre’s costumes, masks and machinery burn backstage, the theatrical spectacle simmers at a fatal remove.