Photo by Tommy Ga-Ken WanA double bill of Samuel Beckett’s most haunting miniature plays directed by Dominic Hill.
KRAPP’S LAST TAPE
An old man sits alone on his 69th birthday, looking back on his life, recorded ritualistically on tape.
FOOTFALLS
A woman paces tirelessly back and forth in conversation with her critically ill mother.
Humorous and moving studies of isolation and loneliness, these two one-act plays are spine-tingling masterpieces.
However well acted and produced, Footfalls feels like a parody of expressionist and surrealist theatre. Whilst the two pieces sit well together, it is Krapp's Last Tape that will leave audiences reaching into their memories and finding a spool to record the lessons of this heartfelt and mind-altering play.
Hill's pairing of Krapp with the rarely performed 1976 play Footfalls is inspired.
[An] utterly compelling double bill.
You can always tell when an actor has his or her audience’s attention. There is a quality of silence which is almost tangible, at once unmistakable and thrilling to be part of. It was much in evidence at the Glasgow Citizens at the opening of this Samuel Beckett double-bill of Krapp's Last Tape and Footfalls.
The experience is akin to being in a popular modern art gallery viewing work that, even 50 years on, retains both a radical edge and sense of extraordinary certainty.
The meticulous choreography of both these pieces, allied to the compelling performances and stark lighting design by Lizzie Powell, not to mention the lyrical beauty of the text, casts a spell that can still be felt tingling on the nerve-ends long after the curtain has come down.
If this version of Krapp’s Last Tape is an almost flawless theatrical experience, it is equalled by the shuddering power of Hill’s staging of the 25-minute fragment Footfalls.
Beckett double bill to be staged at The Citz
Keeping it reel
Citizens' Theatre, Glasgow from Wednesday May 30, 2012, until Saturday June 9, 2012. More info: www.citz.co.uk
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