Abstract
The woman’s wordless scream in Not I and Happy Days acts as a spectral-yet-embodied rendering of unspoken and apparently unspeakable sexual trauma. If trauma symptomology is itself a form of bodily haunting—the past intruding into the present—the wordless scream performs this phenomenon on Beckett’s stage, as a disruptive return of the repressed through the body itself. This essay explores how the performed scream returns embodied trauma to embodied expression in Not I and Happy Days, emphasising the voice as a simultaneously spectral yet profoundly corporeal force. It then examines the potential therapeutic effect of the scream in performance, drawing on a range of actor testimonies.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 95-109 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd'hui (SBT/A) |
| Volume | 35 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | 13 Mar 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Mar 2023 |
Keywords
- Happy Days
- Not I
- scream
- woman
- trauma
- voice
- Samuel Beckett