Beckmann is male. He has a stiff leg from his time in Russia during WWII, and he looks like the thing the cat dragged in after you turned down the first thing it dragged in. What I'm trying to say is that he looks horrible. He has gas-mask glasses because he can't afford real glasses, so he might as well keep his regulation glasses (which he painstakingly explains four times during the play ["These are gas-mask glasses that fit under a mask and I can't afford new ones because my life is so hard waaaah can't you see the symbolism of me seeing everything through glasses of death waah waaah to further reinforce this theme the only time I'm happy at all is when I'm with a girl who takes off my glasses waaaaaaaah]). He served in the war, feels horrible about his part in it, and comes home to find a cheating, unrepentant wife and a dead son. So Beckmann is depressed.
This play is so dense, (because it's a 20th century play) I'll do my best to give an overview of the plot.
There are two scenes before the first scene. The Vorspiel is Death and God talking about how nobody likes God anymore and Death is all "I wiiiin I wiiiiiin burp excuse me." The dream sequence has Beckmann talking to the river Elba. Beckmann tries to drown himself and the river is like "hecks no, son."
Scene 1: Beckmann wakes up on the shore to find a faceless character, "Der Andere," who acts as his conscience and contradicts everything Beckmann says. Then, a young woman finds him, says clever and witty things, calls him her "fish" and "spectre" (he's cold and wet on the shore, and he feels himself not quite real), and takes him back to her place.
Scene 2: At the girl's house she snuggles up and tries to hit on him. She gives him her husband's coat who has been gone too long to Russia in the service. Beckmann sees her husband (who came back with one leg and may or may not actually exist outside Beckmann's head). Beckmann feels convicted because he found another man in the exact same place he's in now--with his wife. He runs out.
Scene 3: Beckmann tries to give his responsibility back for the 20 men placed under his command in Russia. He finds the colonel from his post in Russia, tells him a gruesome dream that he's been having, and asks him to take back the "Verantwortung" or responsibility. The colonel laughs and says his horrific dream (featuring bone xylophones) would make a good comedy.
Scene 4: Beckmann is at a cabaret (I'm adding all the transition there is in the play, too. Crap just jumps about without a care in the world) and tries to sell a song he's written. The song, predictably, is so sad it makes me want to cut myself just to fit in. The cabaret director loves it, but says it's too clear and obvious. (Again, 20th century play. It's actually not clear at all.) Beckmann about implodes.
Scene 4: Beckmann is at a cabaret (I'm adding all the transition there is in the play, too. Crap just jumps about without a care in the world) and tries to sell a song he's written. The song, predictably, is so sad it makes me want to cut myself just to fit in. The cabaret director loves it, but says it's too clear and obvious. (Again, 20th century play. It's actually not clear at all.) Beckmann about implodes.
Scene 5: Beckmann goes to see his parents (confused? So was I). He finds Frau Kramer living in his house. Predictably, he's completely incapable of dealing with it like a human. He implodes. To be completely honest, Frau Kramer did kind of crack wise about how his parents died. (They left the gas on in their kitchen. They died like Jews can't you see the symbolism gosh it's just so intelligent and so buried you'd have to be intelligent to find it). So Beckmann gives up and tries to die. He sits down on the step and has a pages-long argument with der Andere. He talks to God and basically . . . God has nothing intelligent to say. That's why atheists shouldn't write dialog they don't believe in. Then Death comes and offers Beckmann a door. He gives up on everything else. Then, in quick succession, he meets and blames the colonel, director, and his wife for killing him. Dunno how that works. He's committing suicide. Nobody else is responsible for that. He meets the girl again from scene one and two, and she convinces him to live. Yay! Then her husband shows up. Boo! So Beckmann freaks out. The "Einbeiner" or "one legged man" blames Beckmann for his death. Apparently, Beckmann can take it, but he can't dish it out. As soon as he's not blaming and is being blamed, he collapses like a house of cards. He calls for der Andere and nobody's there. He calls for God and nobody's there. The play ends with Beckmann calling
Wir werden jeden Tag ermordet und jeden Tag begehn wir einen Mord. Und du - du sagst, ich soll leben! Wozu? Für wen? Für was? Wohin sollen wir denn auf dieser Welt! Wo bist Du jetzt, Jasager? Jetzt antworte mir! Wo ist denn der alte Mann, der sich Gott nennt? Warum redet er denn nicht!You can translate that on Google, but it basically comes to "Will you give no answer? Is there not a single answer?"
Gebt doch Antwort!
Warum schweigt ihr denn? Warum?
Gibt denn keiner Antwort?
Gibt keiner Antwort???
Gibt denn keiner, keiner Antwort???
Beckmann is a screwed up son of a gun.
Basically, this story has no hope. Don't read it unless you're ready and willing to deal with that. It was written by a man who lived through it and didn't have any answers. If the author has no answers, he can give no answers. He can just depress you.
Finally: Borchert--the author--died just days before his play was performed for the first time. Coincidence? Or fortune? We'll never know.
