Waiting for Beckett

The meaning of life may be subjective, but the meaning of
literature most certainly is.

As such, the prose recitals of Samuel Beckett, writer of
“Waiting for Godot,” will probably be unlike anything
you have seen before.

Beckett himself is hard to categorize, having been labeled over
the years as a modernist, realist, absurdist, postmodernist,
existentialist and minimalist.

This year marks the centenary of Beckett’s birth.

UCLA Live will be celebrating with the Gare St. Lazare
Players’ performances of his works, giving students the rare
chance to see Beckett’s writing performed live.

The group will perform “Access All Beckett: Five Dramatic
Recitals of Prose and One Late Drama” on Tuesday, Thursday,
Saturday and Sunday at the Freud Playhouse.

Most of the pieces are comparable to a one-person play.

“It is a bit like if there was a Picasso or a Da Vinci
exhibition in town; it is a must-see. You should really take
advantage of this opportunity to see and hear Beckett’s
work,” said actor and Gare St. Lazare Players Ireland founder
Conor Lovett.

The Gare St. Lazare Players was founded in Chicago in 1983 and
has since gained international recognition for its performances and
recitations.

Three years ago, Lovett and his wife, director Judy Hegarty
Lovett, set up the Gare St. Lazare Players Ireland, which
simultaneously is based in Ireland and France. Their
interpretations of Beckett’s work have extensively toured
internationally.

The Gare St. Lazare Players’ performances at UCLA Live
will focus on Beckett’s prose, excerpted from his novels.

The prose recitations directed by Judy Lovett include
“Enough,” “Malone Dies,” “The
Unnamable” and “Texts for Nothing (III, VIII,
&XI).”

Conor Lovett, who will perform in all of the above pieces except
for “Enough,” will also be performing in “A Piece
of Monologue.”

“Piece” was directed by Walter Asmus, who will also
direct next week’s UCLA Live performance of “Waiting
for Godot” with the Gate Theatre Dublin.

What makes the works of Beckett so distinct is their use of
complicated imagery with simple words in an absurd manner, where
time and location are often indefinable.

“It’s the simplicity. … The music and imagery is
so sparse yet so very vivid,” said actress Ally Ni Chiarain,
who will perform in “Enough.”

But within this juxtaposition is highly moving writing that can
be both comedic and dramatic.

Beckett’s writing is purposefully open to
interpretation.

“One of Beckett’s qualities is that you can take his
work as straightforward storytelling, and then you can take it
philosophically, socially, spiritually ““ all different
levels,” Conor Lovett said.

“He has that great quality because his work is based on
the truth of his own experience.”

Lovett said theatergoers sometimes tell him that although they
enjoyed the performance, they did not know what it all meant.

This is not surprising with Beckett’s ambiguous stories,
such as “Enough.”

In the piece, a person of undefined gender tells his or her
story of a lengthy friendship with an older man whom he or she
traveled with hand in gloved hand, because the older man could not
stand the feel of flesh.

The text leaves questions unanswered with open-ended statements
such as, “I don’t know what the weather is now. But in
my life it was eternally mild.”

“It was what it was. It is the experience that it
is,” Lovett said in explanation.

Chiarain said exposure to Beckett’s prose will open
students’ minds.

“(The performance) is opening a crack in the door that
very few (students) would have the opportunity to open,” she
said. “If you are interested in words or in communication,
going to see one of Beckett’s pieces will open a door that
you perhaps walked past before.”