• Lessness @ Project Arts Centre, Dublin

    January 26, 2016 - By 

    Premiered at the Beckett International Season at London’s Barbican in June before being presented at the Galway International Arts festival, Dublin’s Project Arts Centre will play host to a four-night night run of the Irish playwright’s 1969 short story Lessness from January 27 to January 30. Set within a vast desert landscape, the performance features Olwen Fouéré, a beguiling physical presence with a phenomenal vocal technique, who invites the audience to reflect upon the many refractions of this profoundly evocative Beckett text. Tickets for Lessness range from €15 to €22 and can be purchased here.

  • Jack MacGowran Remembered @ Samuel Beckett Happy Days Festival

    August 20, 2015 - By 

    Though he died over forty years ago actor Jack MacGowran is still a regular on TV and at international film festivals, having graced such timeless classics such as The Quiet Man, Tom Jones, Doctor Zhivago, Cul-de-Sac and The Exorcist. As a theatre actor MacGowran is best known for his work with Samuel Beckett.  In a revealing talk at Enniskillen’s Southwest College, three people closely connected with MacGowran shed light on his career, his craft and his collaborative relationship with the Nobel Prize-winning writer Beckett. Jack’s daughter, actress Tara MacGowran was joined by Garech Browne, co-founder of Claddagh Records, who had…

  • The Missing Hancocks @ Samuel Beckett Happy Days Festival

    August 19, 2015 - By 

    It seems odd to have Hancock’s Half Hour at the Happy Days Enniskillen International Beckett Festival, a thirteen-day smorgasbord of all things Samuel Beckett-related. Even a cricket match – a sport Beckett adored – between The Theatrical Cavaliers Cricket Club and the long-wandering Gaities Cricket Club seemed a more logical inclusion in the festival program. Still, comedy has always been a significant feature of the Happy Days festival, with today’s finest stand-up comedians bringing levity to the program. This comedy element reminds us that much of Beckett’s writing is laced with wicked humour, a fact that is often overlooked. So,…

  • Phaedra @ Samuel Beckett Happy Days Festival

    August 14, 2015 - By 

    The Happy Days Enniskillen International Beckett Festival’s tentacles are spreading ever further throughout Fermanagh. It’s a reach matched by its artistic ambitions, with ever more imaginative site-specific venues and events to match. The Necarne Equestrian Centre in Irvinestown’s abandoned Necarne Castle is a dramatic enough setting – an almost gladiatorial arena – but nothing quite prepares you for the sight that greets you as you enter the dark chasm of its interior. The twenty one musicians of the Ulster Orchestra in wide circle formation is impressive in itself but right in the centre is the towering figure, some ten metres…

  • Ohio Impromptu @ Samuel Beckett Happy Days Festival

    August 14, 2015 - By 

    The legend on the sign reads ‘The Captain’s Word is Law’ and so it is on the boat ferrying a group of Beckettphiles to Devenish Island for a sunset performance of Ohio Impromptu. When it comes to Samuel Beckett’s plays, however, even beyond the grave Beckett remains very much the captain, with his estate watching closely for any interference with the meaning or spirit of the work. However, as director Adrian Dunbar demonstrated last year with Catastrophe – his striking directorial debut of Beckett – following Beckett’s guidelines is the surest way to success. “If you start fiddling around with…

  • All That Fall @ Samuel Beckett Happy Days Festival

    August 10, 2015 - By 

    How do you stage Samuel Beckett’s radio play All That Fall in a festival setting when Beckett was, for the most part, dead against theatrical interpretations of it? Though there had been stage translations authorized by Beckett, notably by Deryk Mendel in Berlin in 1966 and by Christopher Hampton in Calgary in 1967, the writer seemed to regret such translations and would later say no both to Ingmar Bergman and Laurence Olivier’s requests. When Director Max Stafford-Clark – former Director of the Royal Court Theatre, London – approached the Beckett estate about realizing All That Fall he was asked what…

  • Waiting For Godot: Berliner Ensemble @ Samuel Beckett Happy Days Festival

    August 6, 2015 - By 

    Almost sixty years to the day since Waiting for Godot’s English language premier in London, which then prompted The Observer’s Kenneth Tynan to write that it “jettisons everything by which we know the theatre”, Samuel Beckett’s most famous play still has the capacity to delight, provoke and confound in equal measure. Yet from the off, there is something a little unusual about this production of Waiting for Godot by the legendary Berliner Ensemble. Stage left, removed from the performance space but conspicuous is a small table and chair. On the right, an old, rather regal looking armchair. Above the theatre’s…

  • Stirrings Still @ Samuel Beckett Happy Days Festival

    August 3, 2015 - By 

    Rain pours steadily and the water lies in pools on the road, shooting up like silver ribbons as the bus moves through the Fermanagh countryside. The hills of Donegal flank the route to the left. They say that Lough Erne lies in Fermanagh half the year, while Fermanagh lies in Lough Erne the other half; no matter, the wet July weather can’t dampen the enthusiasm of the Samuel Beckett fans heading to a secret destination to see a theatrical performance of the playwright’s final prose piece, Stirrings Still. The secret locations for performances have become a popular facet of the…

  • May B @ Samuel Beckett Happy Days Festival

    July 27, 2015 - By 

    Ten spectral figures, white-faced, in white night-clothes come slowly onto the stage. They stand stock-still and silent in the dim half-light. Minutes pass. Schubert’s plaintive Deer Leiermann from the Winterreise song circle accompanies their numb vigil. A shrill whistle-blast signals slow shuffling. Another, more urgent, commands greater synchronized movement. The figures draw into a circle and grunt in unison. A tighter circle, more grunting. Walking mechanically to and fro in step, panting as one. Walking, panting and grunting rhythmically as one. Suddenly as one they face the audience. The one staring at the other in powerful symbiosis.  “Fini, c’est fini,”…

  • Not I, Footfalls & Rockaby @ The Mac

    September 10, 2014 - By 

    In theatrical terms, Lisa Dwan’s trilogy of playwright Samuel Beckett’s celebrated short plays at The MAC represented a significant first, and in all likelihood, a last. The actress’s stated intention to retire from performing ‘Not I’ by the end of 2015 means that these handful of Belfast shows had an added spice. It’s hardly surprising that Dwan can see the finishing line for her role as Mouth, as the emotional, technical and psychological demands must surely exact a price. Head strapped to a board, eyes and ears covered, arms immobilized, enveloped in total darkness – this is sensory deprivation taken…