About the work
Short play by Samuel Beckett, written in 1980 at the request of Beckett scholar S. E. Gontarski, who was looking for a piece for an academic symposium marking Beckett's 75th birthday at Ohio State University in Columbus; Beckett struggled with the commission at first and worked on it for about nine months. It premiered on 9 May 1981 at the university's Stadium II Theater, directed by Alan Schneider with David Warrilow and Rand Mitchell.
Plot
Two old men who closely resemble each other sit at a table. One reads the other the story of a grieving man visited nightly by a mysterious figure who in turn reads to him; the listener signals with knocks when the reading should continue or stop.
Cultural significance
With its pair of doubles seated at the table, "Ohio Impromptu" is considered the first Beckett play to place a literal double of a character on stage, and belongs to his late, tightly condensed reflections on grief, memory and loss.