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I see that Lisa Dwan will be performing Beckett's "Not I" at the Royal Court later this month, and that she can rattle through it in nine minutes.
If that's true, it's staggering. I've seen the Billie Whitelaw performance of this piece. She does it in 14 minutes, and it's hard to imagine anyone doing it any faster. If Dwan can do it in nine minutes, it must be sensational.
Why pay to watch a performance that lasts only nine minutes, and consists of a "disembodied mouth" speaking at top speed on the stage? Well, the idea is to represent a woman who has died, lost her body, and, in a split-second, is recapitulating her life in a stream-of-consciousness way. It's not reflective, it's at "the speed of thought".
I'm a Beckett fan, and I've seen a few of his pieces on stage. I've not bothered with "Waiting For Godot" because, well, it's a play that you feel you know so well that it's hard to drum up the enthusiasm to go to see another version. But End Games (Lee Evans supporting Michael Gambon, a young Stephen Rea supporting Norman Beaton), Happy Days (Liz Smith and Charlie Drake I think) and John Hurt in Krapp's Last Tape, are illustrations of where theatre can go. I saw a TV version of Krapp's Last Tape which I think had Pinter in the role.
People seem uncomfortable with Beckett, but, well, that's the point. The plays stay with you forever, toddling around inside your head, making you think but, in a way, helping you think, to put things in perspective.
"Not I" was one of the few examples of where Beckett really felt that an actor had completely "got" his work. Whitelaw apparently left Beckett spellbound with her performance.
It is one of my greatest regrets that in 1979 I had the chance of perhaps meeting Beckett, and a good chance at that (although I did not know it at the time, and this was before I became a great fan of his work). But, as with many things, I blew it. After interviewing Sam White, the Paris correspondent of the Evening Standard, I was in a rush to get back to write it up (these were in the days before cheap portable recording devices). He invited me to lunch at his local café, which I stupidly declined (the idiocy of youth) because I had another interview that afternoon. I was later told that White knew Beckett and that they used the same place for lunch. Was it true? I like to think so.
Thinking about it, I might not have been to Paris since September 1979. Weird.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If that's true, it's staggering. I've seen the Billie Whitelaw performance of this piece. She does it in 14 minutes, and it's hard to imagine anyone doing it any faster. If Dwan can do it in nine minutes, it must be sensational.
Why pay to watch a performance that lasts only nine minutes, and consists of a "disembodied mouth" speaking at top speed on the stage? Well, the idea is to represent a woman who has died, lost her body, and, in a split-second, is recapitulating her life in a stream-of-consciousness way. It's not reflective, it's at "the speed of thought".
I'm a Beckett fan, and I've seen a few of his pieces on stage. I've not bothered with "Waiting For Godot" because, well, it's a play that you feel you know so well that it's hard to drum up the enthusiasm to go to see another version. But End Games (Lee Evans supporting Michael Gambon, a young Stephen Rea supporting Norman Beaton), Happy Days (Liz Smith and Charlie Drake I think) and John Hurt in Krapp's Last Tape, are illustrations of where theatre can go. I saw a TV version of Krapp's Last Tape which I think had Pinter in the role.
People seem uncomfortable with Beckett, but, well, that's the point. The plays stay with you forever, toddling around inside your head, making you think but, in a way, helping you think, to put things in perspective.
"Not I" was one of the few examples of where Beckett really felt that an actor had completely "got" his work. Whitelaw apparently left Beckett spellbound with her performance.
It is one of my greatest regrets that in 1979 I had the chance of perhaps meeting Beckett, and a good chance at that (although I did not know it at the time, and this was before I became a great fan of his work). But, as with many things, I blew it. After interviewing Sam White, the Paris correspondent of the Evening Standard, I was in a rush to get back to write it up (these were in the days before cheap portable recording devices). He invited me to lunch at his local café, which I stupidly declined (the idiocy of youth) because I had another interview that afternoon. I was later told that White knew Beckett and that they used the same place for lunch. Was it true? I like to think so.
Thinking about it, I might not have been to Paris since September 1979. Weird.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
