When it comes to forward thinking programming, a new arts festival is taking planning to a new level.
The organisers of the Beckett Biennale, which from next year will celebrate Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, have announced details of their first production... in 2036 and 2038.
Game of Thrones and Blue Lights actor Richard Dormer and All Creatures Great and Small’s Samuel West are lined up to star in Krapp’s Last Tape, which will feature live recordings made by the actors 30 years earlier.
One of Beckett’s most popular works, the opening setting in the 1958 play is ‘An evening in the future’, with Beckett stating that the title character appearing on stage is 69 years old. However, the majority of the one-man play’s dialogue is spoken by Krapp’s 39-year-old self, via a reel-to-reel tape, recorded when the character was aged 39.
The whole play is a two-hander, featuring dialogue between the same character at two stages of his life, 30 years apart.
Twenty years ago, in a bid for artistic accuracy, Seán Doran, former artistic director of the English National Opera and now Arts Over Borders’ artistic director, had the idea of recording a 39-year-old actor, performing the role of the 39-year-old Krapp, and stowing away the tape for possible use in a production 30 years later.
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“To the best of my knowledge, this hasn’t been attempted anywhere before. In 2006, after my tenure as artistic director of the English National Opera, I took a sabbatical and immersed myself in the work of Samuel Beckett, as an uplifting exercise,” says Derry-born Doran, who had previously produced the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Beckett Shorts with Juliet Stevenson, when he was artistic director of the Belfast Festival in the late 1980s.
Doran says he was “clearly inspired by the integrity of Beckett’s writing”.
“Krapp’s Last Tape was the only work of Beckett, and probably any playwright, where he was so precise about the ages of the actors. It was then that I came up with the idea of recording the tapes of Krapp’s Last Tape with actors aged 39,” he explains.
Doran, “using whatever technology was around in 2006″, discovered that Samuel West, son of the actors Prunella Scales and Timothy West, was then aged 39. He was delighted when West agreed immediately to the concept and recorded the taped lines from the play in BBC Radio 4, London, under the supervision of acclaimed director Katie Mitchell.
West recalls of the experience: “I last listened to the recording a few days after making it, and immediately thought I could do better. I went back to the director and said ‘I want to re-record them’ and she, very properly, said ‘you can’t. That’s the whole point.’”
Two years later, in seeking absolute vocal authenticity, Doran learnt that Co Armagh actor Richard Dormer was approaching his 39th year and he too recorded the part - this time in the BBC Belfast studios on his actual 39th birthday - just like the ‘Spool 5′ tape in the play.
“Richard told me then it was his most depressing birthday ever,” laughs Doran.
In order to protect the tapes from degrading, they are stowed safely at the BBC and in over a decade’s time, they will hopefully be reunited with the actors, 30 years on from when they first recorded them.
The first Beckett Biennale will take place from July 16-26 2026, split between venues in Enniskillen, where Beckett attended school at Portora, and Greystones in Co Wicklow, where his family had a holiday home.
In 2036 Samuel West will perform with his 39-year-old self in the 6th Biennale at the age of 69 and Richard Dormer in the 7th in 2038 at the age of 69.
To the best of my knowledge, this hasn’t been attempted anywhere before.
— Seán Doran
These performances will be the professional world premieres of the play actualising the exact ages that Beckett chose.
“It’s very exciting, 19 years on, that we can announce, with a modicum of more confidence, what we set in motion back then,” says Doran.
“The play itself is very much about the past, present and future, so there’s something hopeful and optimistic to be projecting into the future with our programming, and God willing both actors will be there to perform in person.
“Our extremely-early bird tickets will allow Beckett aficionados with some humour to buy into the long timelapse of the play’s conceit.”
Run by Seán Doran and Liam Browne of Arts Over Borders, the biennales will follow on from the duo’s previous work, steering the Happy Days Enniskillen International Beckett Festival, staged in Co Fermanagh until 2022.
“Beckett’s work seems to be getting more and more relevant. It’s universal and can appeal to everyone. Yes, there’s an impenetrable aspect to his style of writing at times, but the mystery of that actually holds you,” adds Doran.
For the far-sighted theatregoer, a limited number of extremely-early bird tickets will be on sale from April 13, Beckett’s birthday, at artsoverborders.com.
