Theatre of the Absurd plots of many Absurdist plays feature characters in interdependent pairs, commonly either two males or a male and a female. Some Beckett scholars call this the "pseudocouple". The two characters may be roughly equal or have a begrudging interdependence (like Vladimir and Estragon in "Waiting for Godot" or the two main characters in "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead"); one character may be clearly dominant and may torture the passive character (like Pozzo and Lucky in "Waiting for Godot" or Hamm and Clov in "Endgame"); the relationship of the characters may shift dramatically throughout the play (as in Ionesco's "The Lesson"
Play (play) a woman and two men, Syke and Conk, figures in white boxes. In the final version we are presented instead with, as Michael Robinson describes it in "The Long Sonata of the Dead: A Study of Samuel Beckett", “the three corners of love’s eternal triangle (the emphasis here is on the eternal) … They have no names [now], simply the designations M, W1 and W2 which aim at anonymity but also stand for all men and women who have, like them, been caught up in a three-part love affair,” The play is entitled "Play", in the same way that Beckett’s