114 contemporary poetry
the dramatist upon the speaker’s world as ‘deeply oppressive’.^34
Technically Beckett exerts an infl uence in the key repeating of
clauses and the macabre comedy of the time-obsessed speaker
waiting for the bus. As Martiny poses, this element of repetitive
performance in the poem conveys ‘Beckettian unease and a sense of
nightmarishly cyclical endlessness... The opening lines of “The
Beckett at the Gate” represent Durcan’s foray into an existentialist
world where hell is most defi nitely other people.’^35 Guided by his
seat number, the speaker is forced to sit next to a woman (she is
later referred to as Michelle), in a near empty theatre. At this point
both dramatised stage work and the audience’s experience turn
into vaudeville: ‘Not since the Depression of the 1950 s / And the
clowns in Duffy’s Circus / have I laughed myself so sorry’ (p. 134 ).
This sense of carnival is also heightened by the speaker’s proximity
to his neighbour who at each belly laugh kicks him ‘in the backs of
my legs’ (p. 135 ) as well as gripping his arm, howling and leaning
her head on his shoulder. As a storyteller, Durcan’s narrative is fre-
quently sidetracked by excursions into further analogies or related
stories. His initial attempts at describing his companion become a
distracted listing of theatrical and Biblical women:
I mean talk about Susannah
or Judith and Holofernes
Or any of those females
In the Old Testament
Sarah or Rachel or even Eve;
Not to mention the New Testament,
Martha or Mary or Magdalen –
Michelle was – well, Michelle. (p. 134 )These are all women of varying if not confl icting attributes.
Susannah is associated with innocence and subsequent betrayal,
while Judith famously seduced the warrior Holofernes and decapi-
tated him. A fairly prescriptive perception of female role models is
offered by the references to the moral failings of Eve, the beauty
of Sarah or the purity of Rachel. Turning to examples from the
New Testament, the speaker of ‘The Beckett at the Gate’ is torn
between the domestic activity of Martha the task bearer, the virtue