FRAGMENTS. To 13 September.

Coventry

FRAGMENTS
by Samuel Beckett

Young Vic To 13 September 2008.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Wed & Sat 2.30pm.
Runs 1hr 10min No interval.

TICKETS; 020 7922 2922.
www.youngvic.org
Review: Timothy Ramsden 2 November 2007 at Warwick Arts Centre.

Masters of minimalism clash and coalesce.
Fragments, a title of convenience for five Beckett miniatures, almost splinters apart as it begins. Jos Houben and Marcello Magni have credentials in physical theatre. But they speak an accented, somewhat inflexible English that tends to announce its meanings. Houben also over-mugs facial expressions.

That doesn’t help Rough for Theatre I where an Endgame-like couple, one blind the other lame, end in conflict. It starts looking impressive, the actors on a bare stage, but becomes effortful.

The stage continues empty of all but vital props throughout. Beckett and Brook famously cut to essentials; here, it’s Beckett that seems recklessly extravagant, with props often used for comic effects, while Brook goes for formality.

Yet Brook (with two assistants, making the director credits as numerous as the actors’) humanises the monochrome speech-style Beckett demanded. Especially in Rockaby, where Kathryn Hunter speaks the lines, intended to be pre-recorded, and goes on the described journey down into the dark.

Only when returning to the chair where she initially sat does it ‘become’ a rocker, the motion created with her feet. There’s sympathy and vulnerability to the voice, making this unlike other productions: a requiem rather than a burial.

At the centre Act Without Words II shows Houben and Magni at their strongest, each emerging from a huge sack to go through a daily routine. Magni’s oppressed by life, everything going wrong (including that clown standby, the trousers). Houben’s gleefully optimistic. Both are prompted by a huge pointer goading them awake; Magni’s intense praying finally suggests religion as the last resort.

Hunter’s reappearance in the enigmatic, shadowy and ultra-brief Neither, where she continually skirts a pool of light, gives poetic force to an elusive piece. The trio appear together in Come and Go as three old women on a bench. Whenever one leaves, a secret’s whispered about her, eliciting a shocked reaction; it could be gossip or disaster.

Again, Hunter shows the difference between a satisfying performance and one that’s infectiously comic and poetically resonant. Writer and director sometimes coalesce, sometimes clash in this fivesome, but Hunter’s always hitting the heart of this minimal world.

Performers: Jos Houben (2007), Kalipha Natour (2008), Kathryn Hunter, Marcello Magni.

Director: Peter Brook.
Assisted by Lilo Baur, Marie Helene Estienne.
Lighting: Philippe Vialatte.

2007-11-04 12:14:12