T H E - B O X

is an early stageplay/monologue that was recently discovered in a pile of remaining Calvert tapes - and it only exists as such: read by Calvert himself; a non-stop frantic monologue of a man who finds himself locked in... - well, in where?
He's unable to find out
WHERE on earth he's stuck - not to mention HOW he got in there in the first place - and WHO the hell incarcerated him, and - of course - might still be out there - laughing his (or her's) head off...possibly taping all of his ramblings...or maybe light a match to set fire to this man's wooden prison, this cell, this BOX....

....sounds paranoid?
You bet.

With THE BOX Calvert explores an almost impossible theatrical situation with his own lingual virtuosity

Constantly switching between comedy, word-acrobatics, manic despair, pathetic rambling and hopeless threats - against whoever might be OUT THERE - or NOT ...
And his own reading proofs yet again Calvert's talent as the performer of his own texts - as he proofed later on through readings of his poetry - and of course his musical / spoken-words performances.
THE BOX must have been written sometimes in the early 70's as Calvert himself offered it around that time to the Pentameters Theartre, London - for this occassion the poster you can see below was drawn by Godfrey Old from Pentameters.
THE BOX is one of the earliest examples that already shows Calvert's distinctive talent to combine black humour with initially desperate (and particularly difficult = minimalistic) situations. THE BOX also shows the influence of Samuel Beckett's work, which Calvert himself confirmed at various occasions.
Having heard THE BOX for the first time you can't help thinking that, if Beckett would have written a more apparent / obvious sort of comedy, it might would have been quite BOX-ish.
Thanks to aid of Nicole Chungfat I am able to offer you (a world premiere!) the COMPLETE TEXT of THE BOX incl. audio-files of Calvert reading this monologue.


THE BOX
THE BOX
THE BOX
THE BOX
THE BOX
THE BOX
THE BOX
THE BOX
THE BOX
THE BOX


> click HERE to read the complete text + listen to some audio-snippets
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