ABSTRACT
It has been suggested, by John Spurling [in Beckett: A Study of His Plays] that whenever Beckett makes the test of a new medium, he always seems to take a few steps backward in the direction of conventional realism. Then he moves forward again, probing, abstracting. There is a gradual, consistent development from All That Fall onward. All that Fall tells a story; Embers portrayed a storyteller; Words and Music and the Equisses [the roughs for Radio] still have remnants of character and milieu; these are discarded in Cascando which, instead of focusing on a story, focuses on the storytelling condition ...
