★★★★★

“Lovett’s physical performance is totally captivating and anchors this exceptional work of theatre”

The Beckett Trilogy is a stage production of three of the Nobel prize-winning writer Samuel Beckett’s novels Malloy, Malone Dies and The Unnameable by the Gare Saint Lazare Ireland company. Adapted for the theatre by performer Conor Lovett and director and designer Judy Hegarty Lovett, the treatment allows the writer’s absurdist genius to shine through, the solo performer embodying all the isolation, confusion, pain, and emptiness that are the hallmarks of Beckett’s work.

Conor Lovett produces a central performance of pulsating power. Serving as a narrator for the stories, he slides effortlessly between quiet perplexity and deafening explosions of rage, mimicking the voices of other characters and patrolling the empty stage. The piece is also extremely funny: the characters’ various degraded interactions with authority, sexuality and death are described and the audience is invited to laugh at the farcical nature of life and Lovett elicits a rapturous response from the audience. While telling stories, he contorts himself into positions which are sometimes held, the performer appearing to forget how he has found himself in a pose, as he loses the thread of the narrative. Lovett’s physical performance is totally captivating and anchors this exceptional work of theatre.

The staging is minimalist, the first two sections featuring nothing more than an empty stage with a circular spotlight or a ring of light projected on the floor, the work of lighting designer Simon Bennison. The final piece of the trilogy sees a change. Lovett stands with a long drape hanging at the back of the stage and a spotlight before him, throwing an enormous shadow onto the drape. The position of the light illuminates his face giving him an otherworldly aspect and this lighting technique is especially effective when, passing a hand in front of himself, its shadow is thrown over his own face partially obscuring him from view. In this last section, Lovett remains largely in his position, as if unable to move from the spot, and it is here that the play’s focus on language as both essential to the human condition and utterly inadequate as a method of communication is clearest.

Within this set, the cyclical and thorny beauty of the writing flourishes. The language of the play is dense yet halting, stopping and starting, shouting, ruminating, equivocating and Lovett perfectly enacts Beckett’s assessment of human life. Facing the eternal questions of life and death, our answers can only be at best partial and repetitive, with many false starts and new beginnings that lead nowhere. This confusion and incompleteness is rendered both moving and funny. As the narrators pause, often losing their train of thought, they also ask questions out towards the audience, which hang unanswered, despite the response being clear to all those in the theatre: ‘what was I saying?’ ‘Where was I?’ The fractured dialogue between performer and audience places the spectator in a position akin to that of an unresponsive and uncaring universe that sees the plight of humanity yet does nothing to intervene.

The Beckett Trilogy is a masterful adaptation of work of the twentieth centuries’ great writers, by a company that has been described by the New York Times as ‘unparallelled Beckett champions’. On the basis of this performance, the title is certainly warranted.

JOCK at the Golden Goose Theatre

★★½

“an interesting, if imperfect, examination of predatory twenty-first century masculinity held together by a strong performance”

Written and performed by Charlie Howard, Jock is an autobiographical piece recounting his experiences as a young student attempting to gain access into the hyper-masculine in-group of the university’s rugby team. The play explores the process by which some young men are attracted to binge drinking and misogynistic attitudes by the promise of becoming part of something bigger than themselves and fitting in with men who have seen and done this all before them.

Jock explores the protagonist’s journey from naïve initiate to seasoned group member passing a number of steps towards acceptance, including drinking challenges, casual sexual encounters, and humiliating rituals, eventually repeating the same patterns of cruelty on others that he had experienced himself, before a moment of shock leads to an emotional and medical crossroads. The move from naïveté to jaded experience represents growth for the character and the audience is brought along, although the autobiographical nature of the source material precludes the kind of truly shocking event that could act as a stronger transformational volta in a critique of toxic masculinity, beyond the aforementioned health issue, which is signposted at the outset of the play and does not immediately modify the protagonist’s behaviour.

Using a minimalist set of a bar, bar stool, some tables in the audience, and different lighting choices, the play revolves around Howard’s performance, which is very compelling. He inhabits characters beyond the protagonist, including an aloof doctor, various friends, and most memorably, an older ‘ugly man’ that encourages the hedonistic revelry of alcohol and sex, portrayed as a hunched caricature of neanderthal manhood. Each of these personas is brought vividly to life and moments of introspection or drunkenness for the protagonist are well performed, with each character believable.

With Ramiro Batista’s direction ensuring that Howard engages the entire room, his monologue is expressive and the interplay with the audience pushes against the boundaries of a one-man show. Audience members on tables in front of the stage – presumably the performer’s friends – are impelled to interact, they don fancy dress, do tequila shots, or assist in Howard chugging milk through a funnel. This natural interplay, which appeared partially improvised, provided genuinely funny moments that were exceptionally well received by the audience, the majority of whom seemed to know Howard.

However, as a result of this shared background between writer-actor and audience, at times Jock felt like being at a class reunion for a university you hadn’t attended, or a best man speech at a wedding of someone you don’t know. Many of the characters elicited uproarious responses from the audience, which I assume is due to the fact they were identifiable people, and there are jokes that we did not have the context to fully understand. Nevertheless, in his interactions with the audience, Howard’s charisma and charm is most clearly demonstrated, teasing performances out of his friends and improving the material as a result. It would be interesting to see this performance with a different audience to make a clearer assessment of the quality of the work, without the feeling that we were missing part of the joke.

Jock is an interesting, if imperfect, examination of predatory twenty-first century masculinity held together by a strong performance. It is at times very funny, capitalising on Howard’s skill as an actor, and the personal insights into the cyclical nature of abuse within sports teams are worthy but perhaps lack the depth to be truly profound.

Tag Archives: Rob Tomlinson

THE BECKETT TRILOGY

★★★★★

Coronet Theatre

THE BECKETT TRILOGY at the Coronet Theatre

★★★★★

“Lovett’s physical performance is totally captivating and anchors this exceptional work of theatre”

THE BECKETT TRILOGY at the Coronet Theatre

Reviewed on 22nd June 2024

by Rob Tomlinson

Photography by Ros Kavanagh

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE YELLOW WALLPAPER | ★★★ | September 2023

RHYTHM OF HUMAN | ★★★★★ | September 2023

LOVEFOOL | ★★★★ | May 2023

DANCE OF DEATH | ★★★★★ | March 2023

WHEN WE DEAD AWAKEN | ★★★★ | March 2022

LE PETIT CHAPERON ROUGE | ★★★★ | November 2021

THE BECKETT TRILOGY

THE BECKETT TRILOGY

Click here to see our Recommended Shows page

JOCK

★★½

Golden Goose Theatre

JOCK at the Golden Goose Theatre

★★½

“an interesting, if imperfect, examination of predatory twenty-first century masculinity held together by a strong performance”