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A few rags of love
Mar. 3rd, 2006 01:20 pmOr, an evening (well, an hour) of Samuel Beckett's shorter plays (at the Loeb Ex). The stage was fairly open, with one piece of set that extended irregularly on the x-, y-, and z-axes. Interestingly, the playlets barely overlapped the spaces they used, even with the common set.
Catastrophe had a director angsting about a figure on stage, questioning the assistant about particular decisions. He wanted everything just so, for particular effect. It was the funniest of the pieces, also the smokiest.
Rough for Theater I was the conversation between a blind man and a wheelchaired man who wanted help moving himself about. Eyes and legs could make a good partnership... if it worked.
Footfalls had a pacing middle-aged woman and her dying elderly mother, talking to each other, and remembering other conversations; their versions were unsurprisingly different. Heck, the daughter's name wasn't the same. This felt poorly paced (yes, yes) to me, not sure what was going on, and feeling it drag as it did whatever it was trying to do.
And the oddest one was last, Rockaby. A woman rocking in a chair, a voice talking, repeating phrases that almost form into a story. And then the words stop, the woman wants more, as she sits and rocks, in her old-fashioned black outfit. And the voice goes on, and the not-quite-word-salad makes more sense, but it still feels like a tone piece, not a story.
Catastrophe had a director angsting about a figure on stage, questioning the assistant about particular decisions. He wanted everything just so, for particular effect. It was the funniest of the pieces, also the smokiest.
Rough for Theater I was the conversation between a blind man and a wheelchaired man who wanted help moving himself about. Eyes and legs could make a good partnership... if it worked.
Footfalls had a pacing middle-aged woman and her dying elderly mother, talking to each other, and remembering other conversations; their versions were unsurprisingly different. Heck, the daughter's name wasn't the same. This felt poorly paced (yes, yes) to me, not sure what was going on, and feeling it drag as it did whatever it was trying to do.
And the oddest one was last, Rockaby. A woman rocking in a chair, a voice talking, repeating phrases that almost form into a story. And then the words stop, the woman wants more, as she sits and rocks, in her old-fashioned black outfit. And the voice goes on, and the not-quite-word-salad makes more sense, but it still feels like a tone piece, not a story.