is an early stageplay/monologue
that was recently discovered in a pile of remaining Calvert tapes - and
it only exists as such: read by Calvert himself; a non-stop frantic monologue
of a man who finds himself locked in... - well,
in where?
He's unable to find out WHERE
on earth he's stuck - not to mention HOW
he got in there in the first place - and WHO
the hell incarcerated
him, and - of course - might still be out there - laughing his (or her's)
head off...possibly taping all of his ramblings...or maybe
light a match to set fire to this man's wooden prison, this cell, this
BOX....
You bet.
 |
With THE BOX Calvert explores an almost impossible theatrical situation with his own lingual virtuosity | |
And his own reading proofs yet again Calvert's talent as the performer of his own texts - as he proofed later on through readings of his poetry - and of course his musical / spoken-words performances.
THE BOX must have been written sometimes in the early 70's as Calvert himself offered it around that time to the Pentameters Theartre, London - for this occassion the poster you can see below was drawn by Godfrey Old from Pentameters.
THE BOX is one of the earliest examples that already shows Calvert's distinctive talent to combine black humour with initially desperate (and particularly difficult = minimalistic) situations. THE BOX also shows the influence of Samuel Beckett's work, which Calvert himself confirmed at various occasions.
Having heard THE BOX for the first time you can't help thinking that, if Beckett would have written a more apparent / obvious sort of comedy, it might would have been quite BOX-ish.
Thanks to aid of Nicole Chungfat I am able to offer you (a world premiere!) the COMPLETE TEXT of THE BOX incl. audio-files of Calvert reading this monologue.
 |
THE
BOX |
 |
> click HERE to read the complete text + listen to some audio-snippets < back to WORKS < | > back to WORDS © > Robert Calvert < © |
||