Jack Studio theatre – until 9 March 2019
Reviewed by Claire Roderick
3***
My favourite Samuel Beckett is the one from Quantum Leap, so it was probably time for me to see a Beckett play live on stage. Angel Theatre’s production of Footfalls and Play, two of Beckett’s later short plays, has a combined running time of an hour, with both toying with the tedious repetitive patterns people get trapped in. I think.
Play has three characters sitting in three large urns arranged in a row. The actors’ faces are grey and flaky, suggesting decay or fossilisation. Beckett’s precise stage directions have the urns lit by three lights, with the actors speaking when then are illuminated. They begin together, a babble of voices which then splits into each actor speaking when they are individually lit. As they speak it becomes clear who they are. The man is flanked by his wife and his mistress, and they all speak of the rather ordinary, cliched extra-marital affair. The wife (Rose Trustman) is strong but bitter, the mistress (Samantha Kamras) wonders if she is becoming unhinged, and the man (Ricky Zalman) seems only interested in himself. The rhythm of the lighting becomes hypnotic, broken by the occasional erratic pauses in a character’s lines. After a short period of darkness, the play is repeated. This is probably all about being trapped in a cycle of repeated behaviours and inability to let go of the past, but I am afraid this is where I drifted off a little and began analysing the similarities of the play’s staging to a futuristic game of Whack a Mole, with shades of Return to Oz.
The second play, Footfalls, has a woman dressed in ghostly tattered rags, walking repeatedly back and forth along a short strip, shuffling along for 9 steps before turning painfully to repeat her routine. A bell marks the beginning of each stage of the play, with the woman, May (Anna Bonnett) calling to her mother (Pearl Marsland), who may or may not be dead. May could be dead, too. Is she a ghost or is she haunted by her traumas? I haven’t a clue. The shuffling walk is the focus of the piece, and there is repetition of lines and themes, with May pacing outside her mother’s door telling of a ghost who paces the floor of the church. Again, the idea of being trapped and worn down by a disappointing life until we fade away loomed large, but the whole effect was slightly soporific. However, the audience around me appeared rapt.
The lighting and timing of the cast are excellent, and they all deliver solid performances in the skilled hands of director John Patterson, but these plays feel like something to be impressed by rather than to be enjoyed. I think I will stick with the time-travelling Sam Beckett until Godot finally turns up. Even though the plays didn’t appeal to me, I am sure that lovers of Beckett will be thrilled at the chance to see this fine production.