The Beckett Trilogy: Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable

Gare St Lazare  Players Ireland, Ireland's most travelled theatre company, make a return visit to Edinburgh to perform their signature work, The Beckett Trilogy, a distillation of what the three novels; Molloy, Malone Dies & The Unnamable. Samuel Beckett referred to his prose writings as the 'important work' and for over a decade actor Conor Lovett and director Judy Hegarty Lovett have been bringing these works to the stage. The visit to Edinburgh is supported by Culture Ireland. Read more …

Lovett is internationally regarded as among the foremost Beckett actors and has performed in over 70 cities outside of his native Ireland. In the UK the company have performed at The Royal National Theatre, Riverside Studios and Battersea Arts centre in London as well as Oxford Playhouse, Brighton Pavilion and The Tobacco Factory in Bristol, and of course at Pleasance in Edinburgh. Their repertory now includes over 10 of Beckett's prose works.

The Beckett Trilogy is seen by many, including his publisher, John Calder, as Beckett's masterpiece. The first book, Molloy, tells of the crippled, tramp narrator's journey to try and find his mother. In Malone Dies, the dying narrator tells himself stories as he waits in his deathbed and in The Unnamable the protagonist dispenses altogether with story and it is here that Beckett brought the novel to its next step and where very few have followed him.

Gare St Lazare Players have succeeded in highlighting all of Beckett's signature humanity, humour and compassion in a highly theatrical production that has proven itself over and over again internationally. It is a perfect introduction to Beckett's prose and those who are already familiar will need no prompting with this opportunity to sav our Beckett at the hands of a team that have made the rendition of his writing a labour of love.

The critical consensus

For anyone who relishes Beckett's astonishing command of language in all its fragments, though, this show remains a rare experience; rich, thought-provoking and brave, if not always completely gripping.

(*) Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman, 25/01/2011

Part freeform meditation, part existential stand-up routine laced with gallows humour as discursive as Ronnie Corbett and as deep and dark as Dave Allen.

(*) Neil Cooper, The Herald, 25/01/2011