*** 三 小 的 唬 爛 人 生 ***

Over Nothing at All is a play Sarraute wrote in the 80s.

It's about 2 characters (M1 and M2--- not exactly from the Star Trek) having a conversation about something they can't really point their index fingers on.

R2-D2 and C-3PO

In most cases people probably would refer such trivial things as "nothing"--- or as M2 put it: words we didn't "have". But in close relationships, this "nothing" can be deadly. Like you would never know what can put her/him off.

The play is somehow very humorous. Two people who knew each other for a long time were moving towards each other in an awkward, timid, not sure way in order to communicate. They were not totally familiar with each other's landmine zones. However Sarraute has managed to use some concrete words to create the scenarios where one might step into this "nothingness":

1. When M2 boasted some minor accomplishment to M1 and M1 said:  "Oh, tha-at's . . . nice . . .", the intonation and accentuation had caused it. "I wanted to raise myself up to those heights you live in ... and you picked me up by the scruff of my neck, you held me in your hand, you turned me this way and that... and you let me drop, saying 'Oh... tha-at's ...nice'".

2. M2 thinks M1 is setting a mousetrap by offering his contacts to put M2 on the lecture circuit. So M2 would fall into the same game M1 and other people played.

3. When M2 thought M1 display his advantages to get him jealous.

4. When M1 tried to define M2 and pointed a finger on him or used the quotation marks.

Apparently M2 is the one who is more aware and sensitive to this "situation". He tried to explain his discomfort. Throughout the play they had tried to define such thing by "condescending", "mousetrap" or a territory problem. Both of them wanted to include some people with high common sense to judge the better side of the conversation. However the issue is too minor to be discussed in groups. Also the funny thing is--- the more they talk about it and make it speakable and clear, the more they turn away from each other. Alternately it goes down to a Yes and No, the complete opposites of the spectrum.

 I think the play is interesting in the way that:


1. It uses very vivid language to describe such unwordly discomfort.


2. The fact that it let the characters or the voices open for imagination. No excess information but the dialogue itself.

However I do prefer a more abstract presentation of this play. Something like have two naked men covered in white powder (actually gender isn't a fixed thing for the characters) on the stage facing the audience and whispering / murmuring the dialogue. Occasionally they rise up the volume and change the speech speed so to create different tempo of the dialogue. Then there can be very simple and banal snapshots of the things they talk about projected on the stage. And the audience seat should be arranged like the jury box. Or I imagined a dance with no music but only this dialogue at the background.