Drama

Night and Dreams

Nacht und Träume (Night and Dreams) is the last television play written and directed by Samuel Beckett and broadcast on 19th May 1983. It is a wordless play, the only sound that of a male voice humming, then singing, from the last seven bars of Schubert’s lied Nacht und Träume, words by Matthäus Casimir von Collin: "Holde Träume, kehret wieder!" ("Sweet dreams, come back"). Schubert was a composer much loved by Beckett – "the composer who spoke most to him…whom he considered a friend in suffering" (Wiki) Beckett lists five elements that make up the play: evening light, the dreamer (A), his dreamt self (B), a pair of dreamt hands and the last seven bars of Schubert’s lied.