Deleuze, Beckett and the Theater of Exhaustion

Abstract

This article deals with one of Gilles Deleuze’s least addressed texts, L'Épuisé, in which the philosopher analyzes four theatrical-television pieces by Samuel Beckett and deals with the problem of the exhaustion of the word in the work of the Irish playwright. This exhaustion is seen by Deleuze in relation to four elements: things, voice, space and image. From our point of view, we understand that this work shows the last figure with which the philosopher thinks about theater and its transformation facing the emergence of audiovisual images. The elements that Beckett exhausts in his pieces are also a sign of a type of theatricality that imploded the dramatic representation in favor of a development towards image.