I recently did some re-reading and wandering on the subject of the Vorticists, who were a slightly gamey, short-lived British avant-garde. Their stroppy and arrogant adolescence was stamped out by World War 1. Percy Wyndham Lewis was the central figure, an artist who became better known for his writing and a somewhat strained journey away from anti-Semitism and a fascination with Hitler than for his art for some considerable period of his life. Taking another look at his writing, I discovered something I didn’t know, or at least had forgotten: Wyndham Lewis once wrote a play called ENEMY OF THE STARS, that comes off not unlike a precursor for Beckett. Get this opening stage direction:

SOME BLEAK CIRCUS, UNCOVERED, CAREFULLY-CHOSEN, VIVID NIGHT. IT IS PACKED WITH POSTERITY, SILENT AND EXPECTANT. POSTERITY IS SILENT, LIKE THE DEAD, AND MORE PATHETIC

Some Bleak Circus. There’s some dark euphoria for you. A nice little Extinction Aesthetic setting. On the grounds of the Pripyat Amusement Park near Chernobyl, perhaps, in the Zone of Alienation.

 

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