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TUESDAY
“Never thought about radio play technique,” Samuel Beckett wrote in 1955 after being approached by the BBC. “But in the dead of t’other night got a nice gruesome idea full of cartwheels and dragging of feet and puffing and panting which may or may not lead to something.” Beckett’s resulting radio plays, including Embers, Words and Music, and Cascando, are wonderfully whimsical stabs at the interaction of sound, music, and language. And “may or may not” turns out to be a key theme: The productions are essentially about the struggle of an individual to transcend the boredom of existence and actually create/complete something of real meaning. Whether these minimalist radio presentations can be successfully staged is a somewhat nagging question. But Robert McNamara and the Beckett completists at Scena Theatre are certainly up to trying. Beckett’s take on radio begins at 7 p.m. at the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s Hammer Auditorium, 500 17th St. NW. $20. For reservations call (202) 639-1770. (Colin Bane)