A Beckett Evening

Samuel Beckett, Nobel laureate and obfuscating poet of oblique macabre images, is not the standard fare of local amateur theatres who instead usually play variations upon the theme of bed hopping philanderers and someone losing their trousers. However, the Lace Market Theatre's courageous programming isn't the stuff of your standard amateur theatre. In staging Beckett's Not I and Happy Days they demonstrate their desire to stretch their members, and their skills, as much as their audience.

Not I, which opens proceedings, is a short 15 minute spiralling monologue delivered at pace by a solo mouth, about 8ft up, against a backdrop of sheer black. The stream of consciousness that spills from the lip-sticked mouth above the audience is a jumble of phrases and snatches, often repeated, to the point that as the audience you build narrative yourself. It's a haunting spectacle and tones of a woman's Northern Irish accentted voice become both a lullaby and ghost story in the minds of those listening. Director Richard Minkley retains the usually cut silent Auditor (one of the few deviations Beckett ever sanctioned), who stands cowled in a downstage corner. This hooded figure is a distracting presence and whilst he operates as a form for the voice to 'speak' to, his being there causes the eyes to natural drift away from the mouth which should be a totally captivating focal point.

The second piece of this double bill, Happy Days, also inhabits a space that is unclear: it is as much British holiday beach (think Skeggy on a scorcher) as arid salt-pan desert. In this we find Winnie, buried to her waist in sand. Her day pans out before her, endless until the bell and unchanging, much like the wasteland before her. She removes the items from her bag in an almost ritualistic manner - frantically cleaning her teeth, filing her nails, kissing her revolver. Winnie speaks but, like the voice in Not I, it is just fragments and in further comparison with the earlier play there is a semi-silent companion, here it's Willie, Winnie's husband, who on the rare occasions he does speak just grunts unintelligibly or reads personals from a faded newspaper. She is trapped in a scorched wasteland with her aloof husband trying to keep despair at bay with her ritual, snatches of song and a parasol.  By act two Winnie is encased in sand up to her neck and her hopefulness wanes, no longer so strong is her denial of her ever-diminishing world.

Both plays have manful performances from good community actors: both Maeve Doggett, as voice in Not I, and Cynthia Marsh, as Winnie, give good accounts but the whole thing lacks the polish that fully realised Beckett could, would and should have. The direction is laboured and dry, although this is mitigated by the Beckett Estate's insistence of non deviation from the precise stage mechanics laid down by the author. It also lacks the rhythm that these plays' spoken text demands. It is through this lack of crisp, staccato rhythm that both the focus and the lightness and humour became lost. And, yes - Beckett is a very funny playwright! These may be harsh criticisms and there were other elements of the productions that I enjoyed, not least the beautifully painted backcloth for Happy Days. However, if this sort of play is going to be staged it needs the rigours of direction and flow that makes it totally work.

This a full marks for effort production and I love that the Lace Market takes these out-there programming decisions. Equally, with Brecht, Lorca, Strindberg, Shaw, Chekhov and the brutally brilliant The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh (writer-director of In Bruges/Seven Psychopaths) coming up in the next season of work, I'm looking forward to my next visit already.

The Beckett Evening runs until Saturday 24 May 2014 at the Lace Market Theatre