Writers: Samuel Beckett & Eavan Boland
Director: Sarah Jane Scaife
A woman stands on stage performing a reading of Samuel Beckett’s Fizzle 4, a short prose piece, while around her images of waves encroaching on a rocky grey shore align with the themes of Beckett’s piece: death, decay, drowning … constant and repetitive as the waves. The reading is ‘as Gaeilge’ (in Irish), as are all of the plays presented here by An Taibhdhearc with Company SJ, while the surrounding sea sounds and landscape are evocative of the West of Ireland and the islands where the Irish language is still spoken. Footfalls follows; this time the focus is solely on a beautifully lit and costumed May as she paces and wheels along the length of the stage. When May, played heart-wrenchingly well by Fiona Lucia McGarry, turns to face us we see tears running down her face.
Not I and Rockaby are performed traditionally on a bare stage, with deft lighting direction playing a key role as it illuminates a disembodied mouth in Not I and sends the old woman’s face in and out of shade as she rocks herself towards the end of her life in Rockaby. Beckett is unapologetically dark here in his portrayal of these women’s lives, however director Sarah Jane Scaife brings shifts in perspective by interspersing Beckett’s pieces with music – McGarry sings wonderfully well – and Eavan Boland’s poem Mise Eire, the latter using a background of seascape film as the actor’s body becomes one with the stony grey geography of the Aran Islands.
One of the most arresting images in Kilian Waters’ background film begins with two startlingly-red squares in an otherwise muted colourscape moving around fields beside stone walls; these abstract shapes are revealed during the performance to be two women dressed in traditional West of Ireland red woollen dresses carrying creels (baskets) on their backs. They are visual metaphors for Beckett’s devastating portrayals of women’s lives, moving stoically through the harsh but beautiful landscape carrying their heavy burdens; perhaps though the vivid and resilient red of the dresses allows for some joy to colour those lives.
An Taibhdhearc and Company SJ’s production of Beckett and Boland’s short pieces is sensitive and atmospheric: the theatre is very dimly lit and the Irish language flows lyrically throughout in Micheál O’Conghaile’s translations. There are many outstanding elements, including the actors’ moving performances, the music and filmography, Sinéad Cuthbert’s costuming and Stephen Dodd’s lighting design. English audio access (headphones) is provided throughout for those without Irish and the theatre is wheelchair accessible. Scaife has given a beautiful authentic voice here to Beckett’s plays, in keeping with her previous productions where she staged Beckett in the City: The Women Speak in Dublin city in 2015 and more recently Laethanta Sona (Happy Days) in 2021, on Inis Oírr, the same island that plays a starring role in her current production. This multi-sensory staging of Beckett and Boland is engaging on many levels and despite the thematic darkness, it is wonderfully accessible and beautiful to watch.
Runs Until 19th July 2025.
