Abstract
Even to contemplate annotating Samuel Beckett's television plays seems an impertinence, an attempt, as Beckett puts it in Watt, to eff the ineffable (Beckett, 2006a, 218); for these six pieces (Eh Joe; Ghost Trio; …but the clouds…; Quad; Nacht und Träume; and What Where) are effervescent in their presence and subtle in their tonalities. These are plays to be seen, then heard (or overheard), rather than read. Further, the uncertain status of published versions, with cuts and changes made in production but never replicated in print, complicates any definitive text. Shades are not images, nor echoes allusions, and the diminuendo al niente effect of Beckett's references is even more attenuated in these late works. Yet shades (perceived) and echoes (heard) shadow and echo something; bones and stones that give rise to voices.