“At points it just feels as if the performers are reciting passages from the novel”
Gare St Lazare’s adaptation of Samual Beckett’s novel ‘How It Is’ at the Print Room at the Coronet is an intricate and interesting reimagining of the complicated and dense prose. To turn Beckett’s work, perhaps one of his most challenging texts, into performance is a mammoth task and director Judy Hegarty Lovett has a clear understanding of the ways in which to manipulate the performance space into one which can inhabit the intricacies of How It Is.
The story follows that of a man lying in the mud, repeating small moments of his life as he hears them, told to him by some other, mysterious voice. There is no real perception of time, place, or even person within the performance. The man is characterised through three actors: Conor Lovett, Stephen Dillane and Mel Mercier, and each is faultless in their performance. Lasting almost two hours, the performance consists almost entirely of spoken text, often with repeats and in an extremely minimalist writing style. As an audience member, there is an extreme level of concentration required in order to keep up with exactly what is going on through the veil of the ambiguous script. One can only marvel at the incredible stamina and sheer ability of each of the actors in maintaining an incredibly sleek performance with such a dense script.
The staging was especially interesting, with the audience sat on the stage and the performance happening over the two levels of audience seating and on the floor. The lighting, designed by Simon Bennison, was often dim but worked incredibly well with the concept of having the performance in the audience seating. The sound, composed by actor Mel Mercier, was also extremely atmospheric and really added to the performance.
All of the separate elements of this performance were outstanding, however when brought together they unfortunately lack the narrative and drama needed in theatre. At points it just feels as if the performers are reciting passages from the novel, standing or sitting still, with no real purpose. There are long passages in which actors speak over the top of each other, and whilst this is atmospheric at first, it loses traction when used repeatedly for five-minute intervals throughout the entire performance.
With no real visual stimulus to go on, the performance relies on the concentration and quick understanding of the audience to keep them engaged. All of the elements are there, but the adaptation for the stage is where the performance really lacks, often relying solely on the words of Beckett rather than using his language as a basis for a real, interesting performance which makes full use of the live and visual modes of theatre.
“slips from a slow, near-silent pacing to a cacophony of motion and noise”
The eclectic surroundings of the Coronet are the perfect setting for ‘The Comet’, a UK premiere by acclaimed directors Teresa and Andrzej Welminski. The play is inspired by the life and works of Polish author, Bruno Schulz, whose alikeness to Kafka is often referred to – subterranean yet colourful imagination, stuttering on crooked paths between the real and the unreal – though he never attained the same notoriety. He was shot dead by an SS officer in 1942 while walking through an Aryan part of his town and his surviving literature consists of just two collections of short stories published before the war. The rest, left for safe keeping with various people, has never surfaced.
Most of his writing is about his childhood but with a disorientation of memory which avoids sentimental nostalgia. In particular, and like Kafka, his father plays a dominant, almost obsessive, part in this reminiscence. ‘The Comet’ focuses on the last story in the first collection, ‘Street of Crocodiles’ (‘Cinnamon Shops’ in the Polish original) which describes how a father, Jakub, becomes fascinated with scientific discoveries and stages experiments which become magic shows and illusions. Then, with the news of an impending apocalypse, festive excitement paradoxically sets in among the townsfolk.
For this production of ‘The Comet’ (preceded by a short, animated film by the Quay Brothers, also based on the book) the Welminskis have assembled a cast of vibrant and talented actors from different generations and genres. Breaking away from traditional drama they create, through them, an expression of Schulz’s world. The principles of autonomy and equality of roles emphasised in their style of working allows the characters to develop strong, individual personalities as well as melding harmoniously together. Expressive mime and movement not only convey the narration but also illustrate the peculiarity of his vision; it slips from a slow, near-silent pacing to a cacophony of motion and noise.
The black and white costumes hark back to the silent movies, defining each personality with simplicity. Unique props, disproportionate in size, emphasise the distortion which is so apparent in Schulz’s writing and intricate mechanisms echo the transformations and metamorphoses detailed in his descriptions, read aloud to us by a lugubrious narrator. There is a mixture of strikingly imaginative recorded sound, dreamy singing and expressive vocal effects which amplify the mood of the scenes. The lighting is brilliantly designed for its dramatic force, its presence heightening and diminishing the balance of tension (Technical Director – Manuel Frenda).
‘The Comet’ as a piece of physical theatre has an immediacy which bypasses the intellectual response to the words of a script, to evoke a more visceral reaction. It is as if we have peeped briefly through a keyhole into a world in continuum. The actors bring this moment to life with energy and originality which, added to the ingeniously unrefined props and artistic technical aspects, make for an experience which is a wonderfully vivid and amusing journey into the surreal, with plenty of what Schulz called ‘mythicisation of reality’ to mull over afterwards.
