Each time a Samuel Beckett play has a world première, the world turns a deeper shade of black. Once his people were hopefully waiting for Godot; later they crouched in garbage cans in Endgame; Krapp was moribund while listening to his last tape; then in Happy Days, the female lead kept sinking deeper and deeper into a mound. Now Beckett's characters have gone all the way to hell in a play called Play, which has just opened in West Germany.
Only the heads of the three actors could be seen. Their bodies were inside giant clay urns. Spotlights kept picking...

