Theatre: Endgame (★★★★½)

by Samuel Beckett
Black Swan State Theatre Company
Director Andrew Ross
Set and costume Tyler Hill
Lighting designer Mark Howlett
With Geoff Kelso, Caroline McKenzie, Kelton Pell and George Shevtsov
Heath Ledger Theatre
Until June 11

 The set and lighting designers Tyler Hill and Mark Howett achieve a remarkable effect in Andrew Ross’s revival of Samuel Beckett’s Endgame.
Behind a grimy, littered yard and the ochre-stained façade of a crumbling house they have engineered a background of such impenetrable blackness that, try as I might over the 90 minutes of the play, I could not distinguish the curtains, paint and manipulation of light that must have created it.
This void is a perfect metaphor for Beckett’s bleak vision, a place like some freezing ocean abyss where no light penetrates, time has no meaning, the pressure is crushing and creatures – fish with no faces, skeletal crabs like vast spiders – eke out their less-than-lives with no chance of dignity, let alone redemption.And in our time, when clowns and vagabonds operate out of the biggest houses and even the oceans can no longer save their wonders, we need people who can stare into the black void and search for its meaning.




Read the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: Not I, Footfalls, Rockaby

by Samuel Beckett
Royal Court Theatre
Directed by Walter Asmus
Designed by Alex Eales
Lighting designer James Farncombe
Sound designer David McSeveney
Performed by Lisa Dwan
STC Studio
Until February 20

(★★★★½) 

Not I, Footfalls, Rockaby consists of three short pieces performed by the Irish actor, Lisa Dwan. It is exemplary theatre art, and an intense sensory experience.
Not for everyone, perhaps. Certainly not for the woman behind me who celebrated its conclusion with a hissed “Thank God for that” (she had been whispering, not always quietly, to her companion throughout, mind you, and needs to take a good, hard look at herself).
Not I, Footfalls, Rockaby is a dark diamond in the heart of our festival season. Its stillness and silence are eloquent among the bells and whistles.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: Watt

The Gate Theatre Dublin

for the Perth Festival

From the novel by Samuel Beckett

Selected and performed by Barry McGovern

Directed by Tom Creed

Heath Ledger Theatre

Until February 17

When the doors closed at the Heath Ledger Theatre, something happened.

The audience reduced their conversations to a whisper, in anticipation of the arrival of the actor on stage. When, however, some time had passed and the play did not begin, and as if on cue, the whisperers resumed talking at their previous volume. This sudden increase in sound suggested that an incident of some kind had occurred, impelling people to look for it. Others, seeing the direction in which many of their fellows were looking, began looking in that direction as well. People, unable to see for themselves what had occurred (because nothing had), began asking each other what was going on.

It was an auspicious beginning for a night in the company of a writer with an unsurpassed ability to describe what happens when nothing does, and an actor, in Barry McGovern, with the skill and focus to bring it to the stage.

Link here to my complete review in The West Australian