Full-on Becket - Full-on bleak Theatre
Just back from Rough for Theatre II and Endgame at the Old Vic - with a starry cast (Alan Cumming; Daniel Radcliffe; Jane Horrocks and Karl Johnson).
Becket is always, of course, a bit of a challenge and Endgame and Rough for Theatre II (described as ‘rarely performed’ – often a warning) are no exceptions.
We start with the shorter (by far, it’s hardly more than an extended sketch, which is probably why it is rarely performed) Rough for Theatre II, where Radcliffe and Cumming – bureaucrats, auditors, angels? – discuss and assess the life of a man poised in a window to jump.
Should they let him? If they are some form of judge, what sort of lame justice do they represent? What sort of lame judges, indeed are they?
And then Endgame – which out bleaks (by quite a lot) Godot and even Krapp’s Last Tape.
Horrocks and Johnson (both excellent) are in the dustbins – this is (again) mainly Cumming’s and Radcliffe’s show.
Radcliffe shows himself an excellent physical comedian, as his tortured steps are forced up and down step ladders (he can’t sit and can hardly walk) – Cumming, apparently blind and unable to walk has to manage to act the tyrant from a chair – and both throw everything into it.
It’s up to you to decide what it’s about, is the world ending (or ended), or just the characters? Are they desperate for life, or the alternative?
If you like Becket in general, and Endgame in particular, this is a good production of it; if you don’t, it’s still some fine acting.