Fragments @ Warwick Arts Centre

It’s not long since Peter Brook was last at Warwick Arts Centre with his French-language production of Sizwe Banzi Is Dead, but this week he returns with another excellent piece of actor-based theatre, a selection of Samuel Beckett’s short plays entitled Fragments. We’ve been lucky at CAPITAL this week to have been working closely with the company on a series of workshops and discussions for students, and I was very pleased not to be disappointed in any way with the production.

The Arts Centre theatre, as usual for Peter Brook, had the stage extended far out into the auditorium, creating an environment at once intimate (the front row had their feet on the stage) and huge, the three-person cast having an enormous space to play with. Lighting was crucial, the plays separated by a darkness split with bright dividing lines that faded into the succeeding play. Actors moved about in the shadows before returning to their audience.

The five plays, Rough for Theatre I, Rockaby, Act Without Words II, Neither and Come and Go, showcased a playful side of Beckett that Brook developed in his simple staging. I confess that Beckett is a dramatist whose works I generally appreciate but rarely enjoy, and I’ve seen very little in live performance, but I certainly didn’t expect to be laughing quite as much as I did last night. Yet while the plays were very funny, they were never light. The mostly nameless characters were sketches of unpleasant aspects of humanity, often caught in routines and repeated behaviours that, emotionally at least, conjured in me sensations of depression. But the humour and eccentricities were at the same time life-affirming, with Brook finding moments of beauty and revelation in the bleakness.

These discoveries and feelings were perhaps best illustrated in the excellent Act Without Words II. Marcello Magni and Jos Houben, as A and B, began the piece in sacks, with A prodded out of his by a pointy stick descending from the ceiling. Scowling and shaking his fist at the world, he dressed himself, bit into a carrot, dragged the two sacks around the stage, undressed and returned to his sack, all the while in the worst of graces, repeatedly gurning and grunting against all of life’s inconveniences. The entire routine was then repeated by B, except with a smile and a whistle, with everything pleasing him. The two actors excelled in these moments of silence, Houben creating a loveable, almost naively joyful character while Magni brought comedy to his exasperated, world-weary character. Yet in the play’s final moments, with Magni’s character again beginning to curse the world, came a moment of revelation. Magni’s attention was fixed to a point, and he slowly knelt and began to pray in wonder and something approaching desperation. Particularly in relation to the implied eternal routine of the two character’s existence, this moment evoked a transcendence which was left open as the stage faded into darkness.

The two seemed to be equally enjoying themselves in the opening piece, Rough for Theatre II . Both Magni’s blind A and Houben’s cripped B were physically realised to great effect; Magni’s gaze was unfocussed and his way of walking, sweeping the stage with his feet before shuffling forward, struck a fine balance between funny and poignant. Houben meanwhile used his stick to paddle himself across the stage, his voice low and insistent with a mocking lilt as he invaded A’s quiet existence. Moments of the staging, such as A wrapping his arms around B’s neck in happiness and the final struggle over B’s staff, were startling in the way they engaged the watcher. The emotional impact of the production, from my perspective at least, came not from engaging with the individuals but from the universality of these moments of struggle and peace.

Kathryn Hunter, the third member of the company, was given two monologues, the most effective of which was Rockaby. Sitting alone in a chair, rocking gently back and forth, she repeated the same lengthy text over and over, each time drawing different words and moments out of the speech. The words themselves ceased to matter as Hunter took us on an emotional journey, a descent into a dark place coming to an end as the words “Fuck life” suddenly appeared. With eyes darting from side to side, the sing-song style of her delivery became harrowing, a stream of consciousness building to great urgency and again cut short.

Yet the final piece, bringing together all three performers, owed far more to comedy with the three dressed as old women gossipping on a park bench. The physical juxtaposition between the tiny Hunter and the huge Houben was amusing in itself as they tried to whisper in each other’s ear, but the real comedy came from each actor’s faces, the subtle changes that came over them as they passed on rumours about each other and were in turn discussed behind their backs. Yet the comedy of their old-lady faces was replaced in a moment by a powerful expression of unity as they folded hands and sat facing forwards together, a bond between fractured people that spoke far more than the mindless gossip that had preceded. I was left with more than a faint sense of hope as the lights finally went down.

It’s a beautiful production, and one that has left me far more interested in Beckett than I ever have been before. The touching humour affected me far more deeply than his longer plays ever have, and this was no doubt in large part due to the amazing performances by three of Europe’s top actors. At an hour it was short, but goes to show that wonderful things can happen even in so short a time.

Peter Kirwan : 03 Nov 2007 16:25 |  Tags: Productions |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem