“Professor Irwin”
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| Bill Irwin. Photo: Carol Rosegg. |
Bill Irwin’s funny and informative Off-Broadway show, On Beckett, at the Irish Rep, reveals
not only this Tony winner's (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) expertise at discussing acting and clowning, but presents seven selections
from the work of Nobel Prize-winning Irish writer and dramatist, Samuel Beckett. And,
like Irwin Corey, he even gets to poke fun at academia when, donning a
mortarboard and over-sized robe, he does his own take on silly professors.
If it weren’t for the brief appearance of young Finn
Sullivan to play the boy in a scene from Waiting
for Godot this would be a one-man show and Irwin would be a definite
contender for an award as best solo performer of the season. He’s such a
magnetic, charming, informative, and accessible personality, it’s a wonder On Beckett, which he conceived and
apparently directed (no one else is credited), isn’t called Bill Irwin on Beckett.
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| Finn Sullivan, Bill Irwin. Photo: Carol Rosegg. |
Irwin appears on Charlie Corcoran’s bare, black, proscenium-framed
stage, quite nicely lit by Michael Gottlieb, with only two black cubes and a black lectern-like prop to accompany him. Wearing a white shirt and simple black suit, he chats amiably about his love for
Beckett’s words, which have gone viral in his head. We learn of his various
career encounters with Waiting for Godot and of his regret that he’s never done Endgame
(in which this reviewer once played the role of Clov!). Irwin longs to do
another production of Godot, whose
variant pronunciations he delightfully explains, because, like so many other Beckett thespians,
he feels there’s still more in it for him to discover.
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| Bill Irwin. Photo: Carol Rosegg. |
Irwin’s discussion of Beckett is not, however, from a traditionally
scholarly perspective but from that of an actor. Being the unusual player that
he is, though, much of his approach derives from his joy in clowning. Although
he’s played his share of serious stage, film, and TV roles, always excellently,
his mark was made through his remarkable talents at physical humor, the kind honed in music halls, vaudeville, and silent movies.
Trim and youthful at 68, he remains eternally flexible, tripping
(sometimes literally) with perfect skill through traditional shtick involving
hats (especially bowlers, on whose Beckettian cachet he expostulates), canes, baggy
pants, flipper-like shoes, and character silhouettes. Watching him sink and
rise behind the lectern as if on a mechanical lift is only one of the visual
plums he provides with elegantly humorous precision.
But, for all his rubbery grace and facial foolery, Irwin is
also extraordinarily adept with language, and he scatters the evening with an
array of Beckett selections demonstrating his impressive interpretive skills.
The first part of the evening is devoted to a series of mostly arcane pieces
from Beckett’s lesser-known, nondramatic writings, especially Texts for
Nothing. Irwin rivets our attention by somehow transforming
opaque, largely incomprehensible material into expressive streams of living
text, even when we have no idea of what he’s saying.
Still, these obscure, oddly punctuated passages, including choices from Beckett’s novels The Unnameable and Watt,
while brilliantly presented, are too dense to maintain continued interest. I felt
relief when Irwin came to Beckett’s theatre writing, even though the actor claims
he couldn’t find anything suitable to extract from Endgame, forcing him to
focus on Godot. Of course, Beckett
wrote other brilliant plays but Irwin references only those two. Wouldn’t it be
wonderful to hear Irwin do, for instance, something from Winnie in Happy Days?
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| Bill Irwin. Photo: Carol Rosegg. |
Godot gives Irwin
plenty to work with, particularly when he gets to Lucky’s puzzling, complex
monologue, which he presents while holding a white rope extended from his neck
as if Pozzo were at the other end. It’s a tour de force, of course, incoherent
as it may seem. As with his renderings of the murky, nondramatic texts, Irwin makes
the words sing while accompanying them with droll expressions and gestures.
On Beckett is filled
with anecdotal features, both personal (including a bit about the late Joe Chaikin) and
Beckett-related (as with Irwin’s commentary on how rigorously the writer’s
estate oversees productions of his plays). He touches on some of Beckett’s main
existential themes (which he calls “threads”), such as the human will to
survive, but thankfully avoids going into the weeds.
It’s always inspiring to see Beckett well performed, even in
the non-traditional context of a lecture-demonstration. Thus, seeing and
hearing Bill Irwin explicate and demonstrate his approach to Beckett’s challenging
material over a 90-minute stretch is an experience theatregoers, especially
Beckett lovers, should relish. It also gives us hope that, before long, he’ll
have the chance to do a production of Endgame.
I somehow suspect that, if he plays Clov, he'll be a hell of a
lot better than I.
OTHER VIEWPOINTS:
Irish Repertory Theatre
132 W. 22nd St., NYC
Through November 4
