Simon Nabatov: Quadrature

»Quad« is a 1981 television production by Samuel Beckett. Theatre as a space of meaning is here reduced to a naked square. The four protagonists are speechless, also faceless under coloured cowls, and their monotonous movements in time to a percussion score make them seem like the mechanical figures of a music box – or criminals, silently, dumbly walking around a prison quadrangle. Surely it is not a coincidence that »Quad« sounds similar to the English slang term for jail, »quod«. The pianist Simon Nabatov, who lives in Cologne, has created a musical »re-interpretation« of the ambiguous piece for a classic string quartet and piano. The two-part structure, which calls for a fast run-through and then a slower second one, is maintained, as are the movement choreography and the square as the site of the action – the reinterpretation will only open the sonic space slightly wider.

Supported by Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen