Samuel Beckett fans are in for a treat as this year’s Malta Arts Festival programme focuses quite heavily on the playwright. Martina Portelli catches up with Llanarth Group actors Patricia Boyette and Andy Crook, who will be taking part in four plays from The Beckett Project and in the group’s premiere of Happy Days.

Irish author and playwright Samuel Beckett is well known within theatre circles for his challenging pieces, often tackling the absurdity of human existence, our desperate search for meaning and individual isolation.

It becomes a very visceral and real experience for the audience

Apart from his heavy subject matter, Beckett crafted scripts devoid of overbearing stage directions – sometimes entirely depriving his actors of movement while specifying precisely what he requires and nothing more.

I sat down with actors Patricia Boyette and Andy Crook from the Llanarth Group, to find out more about the critically acclaimed, award-winning approach to the plays of Samuel Beckett – which they call The Beckett Project – that they will be bringing to this year’s Malta Arts Festival. The group will also premiere Happy Days, one of Beckett’s longer plays, at Couvre Port, Vittoriosa.

I ask Boyette about The Beckett Project, and she explains that it is mainly focused on a number of Beckett’s short plays and dates back to 1995, when Llanarth Group director Phillip Zarrilli and the actress met up with English thespian Billie Whitelaw. Whitelaw is renowned for her interpretations of Beckett’s work, after having worked in close collaboration with him for over 20 years.

The Beckett Project practically started over drinks,” Boyette says with a smile. “We discussed the difficulties in performing Beckett’s work with Billie and in a sense she passed the baton as it was given to her by Beckett himself.”

Boyette adds that the project was intended to run for three years, combining the insights gained from Billie Whitelaw with Zarrilli’s approach, which employs an amalgamation of Asian martial and meditational arts. The idea was to test whether this training would aid the actor in doing the intense – and sometimes be extremely physically – work that the performance requires.

The project’s longevity does shed some light on the success of this method, but just how effective is it?

“If you ask me whether it works, the answer is yes and no,” Boyette replies somewhat confusingly. “It’s still difficult, but the approach is strong.”

I turn to Andy Crook, who joined the group while they were stationed in Cork in 2003. For Crook, the experience with this technique has been intense.

“For me, it relocates Beckett inside the body – it is no longer just an intellectual process, but it brings me closer to the ideas behind the pieces as well. I’ve come closer to understanding what Beckett is trying to do.”

Both actors agree that this approach also reaches the audience.

“I think it becomes a very visceral and real experience for the audience,” Crook continues. “A much more engaging experience than simply peering in.”

Despite their fresh approach towards performing Beckett, both actors do not really feel that this approach impinges on the interpretation of Beckett’s plays as he would have intended them to be performed.

“The interesting thing about the way that we work with Phillip is that we never sit down and ask what Beckett is trying to say, or what the work means – it really is just finding the depth and the colour in the work come through,” Crook explains.

“What’s special about the pieces is how timeless they are, how relevant they remain within the current economic and political situations across the globe, and I think that this does come through to the audience,” Boyette adds.

Their visit to Malta, apart from being special because it is their first as a theatre group is also important because, although few people are aware of it, Samuel Beckett wrote Not I – one of the plays being performed as part of The Beckett Project – on seeing Caravaggio’s Beheading of St John while on a three week vacation to Malta in 1971.

On asking whether they are looking forward to seeing the work, both actors enthusiastically reply “absolutely!”

“Following Beckett’s footsteps is always exciting,” Crook adds as our time draws to an end. “He created these extraordinary pieces – it’s always fascinating to see what inspires him.”

The Llanarth Group will perform Happy Days at Couvre Port, Vittoriosa, on July 5 and 6 at 9 p.m. They will also perform four short plays from The Beckett Project at Palazzo de Piro, Mdina, on July 7 and 8 at 8 p.m. For ticket prices and more information go to www.maltaartsfestival.com.

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