All that Fall

All That Fall was originally broadcast as a radio play, but since its premiere in the 1950’s there have been a number of attempts to reformulate it for a physical space – most of which have been criticised by its author Samuel Beckett. The Pan Pan Theatre (Ireland), with Gavin Quinn as director, have offered us a sound and light installation, with the play pre-recorded and broadcast over speakers to a seated audience.

Although the voices are visually disembodied (they come at us from the darkness), they are hyper-embodied aurally, with the fulsome gamut of characteristic Beckett aches, itches, wounds, sounds, tics, and grindingly slow movements. The bodies of the protagonists are reconstituted in the mind’s ear, with painful, mellifluous detail. Special attention is paid to the timing of the sound effects crucial for this work, which Beckett once described as ‘a nice gruesome idea, full of cartwheels and dragging of feet and puffing and panting which may or may not lead to somewhere’.

As with many of Beckett’s major works, the unmediated horror of the abject is married with piercing, gallows humour to create a thoroughly jarring, though pleasurable, literary effect. The bathos is manifest when Dan Rooney declares that if it weren’t for his ailments he might, ‘keep panting on till I turned a hundred – wait on – have I turned a hundred today?’    

Aine Ni Mhuiri has done a great service to the text, rendering the festering anxiety and melancholia of Maddie Rooney’s lines with recognisable relish, while also excelling at her hilarious, cutting insults and witticisms. She modulated her voice admirably in most aspects available to the instrument, and the Irish accents complemented the content, dabbling as it does in obscure wordplay and linguistic reference.

Andrew Bennett also did well as Mr Rooney, injecting a novel dynamic into the one-act play when he was introduced half-way through it. The divergent monologues and non-sequiturs that are expected of a Beckett work did not disappoint, with both actors nailing the timing, hesitations and revisions. The rest of the cast did a solid job in support of the protagonists.

The physical design was appropriate, with the audience seated in rocking chairs facing a large wall of individual lights, surrounded by smaller globes hanging from the ceiling. This lighting arrangement was thoughtfully utilised for the most part, supporting the variation in the mood orchestrated by the sound design, which was excellent. The only drawbacks were the human-produced animal noises which sounded amateurish and the rather naïf illumination of a large cross during one part of the act dealing with faith. But besides these minor blemishes, this is an excellent interpretation of a modern classic.

Rating: 4 and ½ stars out of 5

All That Fall
Writer: Samuel Beckett
Director: Gavin Quinn
Performers: Aine Ni Mhuiri, Phelim Drew, Daniel Reardon, David Perse, Robbie O’Connor, John Kavanagh, Judith Roddy, Sarah Greene, Neil Klemencic, Andrew Bennett and Joey O’Sullivan
Designer: Aedin Cosgrove
Sound design: Jimmie Eadie
Dramaturge: Thomas Conway
Seymour Centre, Chippendale
13 – 19 January   

World Theatre Festival, Brisbane
www.brisbanepowerhouse.org
11-23 February