MAKING DARKNESS SHINE
Lisa Dwan is brilliant in Beckett Trilogy, now onstage in Toronto,
Beckett Trilogy (out of 4) By Samuel Beckett. Directed by Walter Asmus. Until Nov. 1 at Berkeley St. Theatre, 26 Berkeley St. canadianstage.com or 416-368-3110
The darkness has never seemed as bright as it does in Beckett Trilogy, three short plays by Samuel Beckett being presented by Canadian Stage at the Berkeley Street Theatre through Nov. 1.
The total running time is just under an hour, the visual effects are minimal and you’ll find yourself sitting in stygian blackness for most of the time, but believe me, you will see enough to keep you thinking for weeks ahead.
Lisa Dwan is the artist interpreting the three works ( Not I, Footfalls and Rockaby) and she joins Jessica Tandy, Billie Whitelaw and Julianne Moore as the great interpreters of those bleakly beautiful monologues for women that Beckett wrote near the end of his life.
In Not I, all you see is a mouth as red as a gaping wound, surrounded by blackness. At supersonic speed, it spits out a story of abuse and neglect that left the victim mute until now. The details are never specified and the woman who’s addressing us with such venom keeps insisting the story is not about her. “No, she!” she screams time and time again, leaving with us no easy solution, just an unforgettable memory of pain.
A few short minutes later, Dwan appears in white lace, looking for all the world like a dystopian version of The Lady of Shalott, fragile yet deadly.
The play is called Footfalls and it’s mainly a monologue for the unseen voice of an elderly woman who is the mother of May, the wraith we see walking a perpetual journey of nine steps in each direction while her footfalls echo like someone knocking at the gate of oblivion. Dwan’s recorded voice works in stunning counterpoint to her haunting image as we follow her to the end. Another pause and now we see Dwan dressed again in lace, this time high-necked black, as she sits in a rocking chair for the final play, Rockaby. Once again, she performs a duet with her own recorded voice, while the real life Dwan mainly utters the word “More” with ever-increasing urgency at selected intervals. Near the end, we hear the damning statement, “F--- life,” perhaps Beckett’s final statement on the human condition, although he would write three more short plays before his death.
Walter Asmus has staged with a true fidelity to Beckett’s intent and it’s impossible to envision anyone finding as many shades of meaning in this three-part sonata of memory and the inevitable march toward death as Dwan provides time and time again.
She is brave, she is brilliant and she is unforgettable, like the man whose words she brings to life.