‘What I need now is stories,” says Molloy, one of Samuel Beckett’s complex creations in The Beckett Trilogy, a quote which exemplifies the Irish writer’s renowned minimalist style of storytelling.
Don’t wait for Godot
‘Waiting for Godot is probably Beckett’s most famous play. But we specialise in things that he didn’t write for theatre – his novels and short stories,” said Irish actor Conor Lovett.
The Beckett Trilogy consists of three Beckett novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable, and Lovett has chosen extracts from each in a production directed by his wife, Judy Hegarty Lovett. In their work with the Gare St Lazare Players, they have earned a reputation as one of Ireland’s foremost theatre companies.
‘I think that from Beckett’s point of view, his novels were the most important to him,” said Lovett.
‘The best reaction we are hoping for is for people to walk out wanting to read the novels.”
The illusion of Beckett
Their production of The Unnamable premièred at the Kilkenny Arts Festival in 2001.
‘That put us on the road to doing more Beckett novels, and we ended up doing the trilogy,” said Lovett, who has performed 17 Beckett roles in 23 different Beckett productions.
His intention while performing is to let Beckett’s voice be heard.
‘We don’t want it to be the Conor and Judy show,” he said. ‘You literally have to pretend that you are the character. The trick is to create that illusion.”
Because the production is based on Beckett’s prose instead of his plays, there are no obvious stage directions or props, making for a stark stage and more concentration on the characters and their words.
Oral tradition
Beckett is known for writing in the first person.
‘He wrote as if the words were being spoken,” said Lovett. ‘His work is written in the oral tradition. I like to think that it belongs to an ancient tradition
of storytelling.”
Molloy, in which a crippled tramp talks about his attempt to visit his mother, introduces the audience to an engaging character.
‘With Beckett, the plot is not necessarily the driving force. Instead it is more about the characters’ speaking,” said Lovett.
Beginning to end
Malone Dies, a story about a man who tries to tell himself stories while waiting to die, took a similar approach to Molloy.
‘We made an effort to begin at the beginning and end at the end,” said Lovett. ‘We were less concerned about the action in terms of the plot.”
The action of words
In The Unnamable, in which an unnamed narrator struggles with his own existence, there is even less action or movement.
‘We wanted to see if we could encapsulate the overall gist of what he was saying,” said Lovett. ‘We were happiest with this one.”
Beckett’s work is considered universal, and the writer received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969.
‘For me he is one of the great artists, like Picasso or Bob Dylan,” said Lovett. ‘His work travels, and people connect easily with it.”
This piece is from Cue Online, a project of Rhodes University’s New Media Lab.