That Fall by Samuel Beckett
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Wednesday, November 9, 2016 at 7:00 pm Thursday–Friday, November 10–11, 2016 at 7:00 and 9:00 pm Saturday, November 12, 2016 at 3:00, 7:00, and 9:00 pm All That Fall By Samuel Beckett Pan Pan Theatre Gavin Quinn , Director Aedín Cosgrove , Set and Lighting Designer Jimmy Eadie , Sound Designer VOICES Áine Ní Mhuirí , Mrs. Rooney Phelim Drew , Christy Daniel Reardon , Mr. Tyler David Pearse , Mr. Slocum Robbie O’Connor , Tommy John Kavanagh , Mr. Barrell Judith Roddy , Miss Fitt Nell Klemen čič, Dolly Andrew Bennett , Mr. Rooney Joey O’Sullivan , Jerry This performance is approximately 70 minutes long and will be performed without intermission. These performances are made possible in part by the Josie Robertson Fund for Lincoln Center. The Duke on 42nd Street Please make certain all your electronic devices aNEW42ND STREET ® proje ct are switched off. WhiteLightFestival.org MetLife is the National Sponsor of Lincoln Center. UPCOMING WHITE LIGHT FESTIVAL EVENTS: Artist Catering provided by Zabar’s and Zabars.com Thursday–Saturday, November 10–12 at 8:00 pm at Baryshnikov Arts Center, Jerome Robbins Theater American Airlines is the Official Airline of Lincoln (T)here to (T)here (World premiere) Center Liz Gerring Dance Company Liz Gerring , choreographer Nespresso is the Official Coffee of Lincoln Center In collaboration with Kay Rosen Dancers: Brandon Collwes, Joseph Giordano, Pierre NewYork-Presbyterian is the Official Hospital of Guilbault, Julia Jurgilewicz, Claire Westby Lincoln Center Post-performance discussion with Liz Gerring on November 11 Co-presented by Lincoln Center’s White Light “All That Fall” by Samuel Beckett is presented Festival and Baryshnikov Arts Center through special arrangement with Georges Borchardt, Inc. on behalf of The Estate of Samuel Saturday, November 12 at 7:30 pm in Alice Tully Hall Beckett. All rights reserved. Venetian Coronation Gabrieli (formerly Gabrieli Consort & Players) Paul McCreesh , conductor Works by ANDREA and GIOVANNI GABRIELI Pre-concert lecture by Raymond Erickson at 6:15 pm in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse: “Prisoners in Their Own Palace: The Doges of Venice” Monday–Wednesday, November 14–16 at 7:30 pm in the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College The Return of Ulysses Handspring Puppet Company William Kentridge , director Ricercar Consort Philippe Pierlot , musical director MONTEVERDI: Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria Post-performance artist discussion on November 15 For tickets, call (212) 721-6500 or visit WhiteLightFestival.org. Call the Lincoln Center Info Request Line at (212) 875-5766 to learn about pro - gram cancellations or to request a White Light Festival brochure. Visit WhiteLightFestival.org for full festival listings. Join the conversation: #LCWhiteLight We would like to remind you that the sound of coughing and rustling paper might distract the performers and your fellow audience members. In consideration of the performing artists and members of the audience, those who must leave before the end of the performance are asked to do so between pieces. The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not allowed in the building. Note on the Program With only a few technological upgrades, this century-old technology has survived By Nicolas Johnson and maintained its own market, its own loyal adherents, and its own reasons to be. The medium of radio exists on a strange Why is this? border, and Samuel Beckett continuously exploits its paradoxes in the composition of What is durable about radio as a broadcast his radio plays. A voice comes to one in the medium might be the same fundamental dark, and the voice is both intimate and principle that makes Beckett’s theater dif - ubiquitous at once, the disembodied pres - ferent: the expressive power of absence. ence of a stranger in one’s own room. The On the radio, it is precisely the invisibility history of radio has both solitary and com - of the bodies, the uncertain origins of the munal modes of listening: Although early sounds, and the resulting instability of the units required headphones, it was not long stage world that work together to activate before the wireless was a focal point for the imagination of the audience. The opti - family life and recreation in the years mal way to experience radio drama, as before television. Though its pervasiveness many listeners of the BBC Third didn’t kill audio-only media, television has Programme did habitually when these made radio seem somehow old-fashioned. were first broadcast, was to sit in darkness Digital culture in the current century has for the entire piece, turning one’s room brought clearer sounds and more control, into a private theater. Radio heard like this for both senders and receivers—the com - puts all the senses to work, because the pact disc, the laptop, and the podcast give only stage is the mind. Such active listen - the user absolute control over selecting, ing is less and less common now, how - starting, and stopping the content. The con - ever, and the pace of life seems to agitate ceptual innovation in Pan Pan’s stage pro - against it. These radio plays have already duction of All That Fall , Beckett’s first play had radical adaptations each time some - for radio (written at the BBC’s suggestion in one has listened to them inattentively, has 1956 and directed by Donald McWhinnie), walked into a different room of the house is thus really a throwback to its first broad - and thereby cut them, has been distracted cast on 13 January 1957: the fact that one by a phone call, or has driven in traffic must appear at a particular time and place while listening to them. Against this drift, in order to experience it. Today’s audiences Pan Pan has carefully shaped a listening at All That Fall , like that of the original chamber that powerfully directs one’s broadcast, are no longer wholly in control, focus to the texts, Beckett’s thought, and and are listening together. the performances of the actors. Director Gavin Quinn and designer Aedín Cosgrove It may be seen as surprising that radio have shaped the visual, tactile, and even broadcasting continues to flourish in the olfactory experience of the listeners in a 21st century at all. Certainly, the reasons way that draws attention without disturb - are partly economic: Radio remains the ing the disembodiment that is so funda - cheapest and most democratic form of mental to the pieces. mass media, with low operating costs rel - ative to the number of people one antenna Pan Pan’s faithfulness here to the sense can reach. But the fact that television has of “occasion” of early broadcast media— not fully supplanted radio suggests that a feature of Beckett’s own experience lis - what audio-only broadcasting offers is sub - tening to the radio during the war, as well stantively different than video, and appar - as the experience of his first listeners— ently is even irreplaceable by internet. complicates the inevitable questions of WhiteLightFestival.org authorial fidelity. Beckett’s opposition to company’s 1991 founding—is nothing if staging his radio plays is well known, and not representative of the porous bound - in the 55 years since the original broadcast, aries between visual art, sound art, theater there have been a number of controversies design, installation, live art, and perfor - over performances of All That Fall in Great mance. In this sense, Pan Pan’s experi - Britain and worldwide. Writing to his ments with Beckett point toward a new American publisher Barney Rosset on 27 horizon of the many possible future August 1957, Beckett was adamant that Becketts, a living legacy that is open to the All That Fall is written “for voices not bod - imagination of alternatives while still being ies,” and noted that his work for radio conscious of what is integral to his radical depends on “the whole thing’s coming creations. Pan Pan is more alert than many out of the dark.” The same letter contains other companies to the increasingly obvi - a widely quoted dictum taken by some to ous fact that the choice between pure be his last word on adaptations: “If we experimentation and keeping “faith” with can’t keep our genres more or less dis - authorial intention is, like all binaries, a tinct, or extricate them from the confusion Faustian bargain. It is not either/or, but that has them where they are, we may as both/and: Pan Pan’s productions are still well go home and lie down.” Nonethe - partly “coming out of the dark,” and we less, there have been numerous stage are also asked to “listen to the light.” presentations of All That Fall since its composition. There is also good evidence Nicholas Johnson is a director, performer, that Beckett could not extricate his own and teacher who works internationally with works from the confusion of genre as the practice-based research on Samuel century wore on, and that for all his hyper- Beckett. He is director of Painted Filly awareness of form, Beckett’s thought Theatre and a co-founder of the Samuel oscillated across many different media in Beckett Summer School, both in Dublin. his own drafting process. He is an assistant professor of drama at Trinity College Dublin. Pan Pan’s work—some of the most innov - ative and original in Ireland since the —Copyright © by Nicholas Johnson Meet the Artists and most recently, Samuel Beckett’s Cascando at Samuel Beckett Theatre. Pan Pan Theatre Pan Pan Theatre is a contemporary theater Mr. Quinn has also been prolific in directing company in Ireland, founded in 1991 by co- opera, with award-winning credits that artistic directors Aedín Cosgrove and Gavin include The 4 Note Opera by Tom Quinn.