Gorgeous Beckett!
If you’ve decided that Beckett is pretentious, unapproachable tosh that doesn’t deserve your time of day then, dear reader, I have news for you!
Get your bum onto one of the few available seats at The Old Red Lion and sit through not one but three (short!) Beckett plays!
The first, ‘Act without Words 1’, is a balletic game of human tetris performed by Joe Eyre. He then returns for ‘Rough for Theatre II’, with Bryan Moriarty (who makes Bury St Edmunds the funniest place of the evening) and Dominic Grove who, also in the final piece, Catastrophe, performs the silent but essential centre piece.
For the skinny read this wisdom written by Roz Wyllie. There’s no point in me rehearsing similar sentiments – except, of course, we understood the whole shebang.
BUT BUT BUT
it’s all really great fun! It all looks lovely – nice striking contrasts with clever use of light to open the show, and a helpful audio cue on transition between pieces.
Ha!
So the bad news? The real catastrophe is that there is no image in the press pack of Kate Kennedy, the frankly outstanding actress who seizes the stage for the final piece with an extraordinary performance responding to, and fantasising on, the having of power. One minute suppliant, the next dominant, one second repressed, the next, liberated; very loud then timid. Funny, involving, frightening.
So while Roz and her clever friends were consumed by the meaning of the plays for an hour afterwards, we popped next door and stuffed ourselves with sushi.
Now that’s what I call Beckett.