Presented by State Theatre Company in association with Adelaide Festival
By Samuel Beckett

 

From the genius of Samuel Beckett comes a very special Adelaide Festival event. Three perfect theatrical gems bound together in one dreamlike experience featuring Paul Blackwell, Peter Carroll and Pamela Rabe—three of Australia’s greatest actors, brilliantly matched to the funny, wistful and acutely observed existential work of Beckett.

Footfalls features May, wrapped in tatters, metronomically pacing back and forth on a strip of bare landing outside her dying mother’s room. Part ghost story, part exploration of the existential bonds between parent and child, Footfalls sees Beckett at his purest, speaking directly to our subconscious.

Eh Joe plumbs the depths of Beckettian regret. An ageing man sits in the secure solitude of his bedroom. But his locked door cannot block out the insistent woman’s voice that enters his mind, forcing him to face up to his past and the lovers he has failed or driven to destruction. Tormented by his inner demons, he is made to relive everything he has tried to forget.

One of Beckett’s greatest works, Krapp’s Last Tape is a haunting look at the many lives we live in the course of a single one. Krapp, an elderly man, is surrounded by darkness in his room—a single light illuminates his only significant possession, an old reel-to-reel tape recorder. It is his birthday and, as is his annual ritual, he records recollections of the year while also cackling over his old tapes. What starts out as the vaudeville of an old man’s memories, however, increasingly becomes a confessional that reveals a life of missed opportunities; and Krapp’s nostalgic laughter turns into heavy silence.

A rare and intimate theatre experience not to be missed.