Texts from the last decade of Samuel Beckett’s life find new voice in a bold stage adaptation starring Robert Meldrum and directed by Richard Murphet.
Victorian Theatre Company presents Still: Late Works by Samuel Beckett, the latest artistic collaboration between Melbourne theatre greats Richard Murphet and Robert Meldrum.
After the sell-out season of Worstward Ho (Australian Premiere), powerhouse duo Richard Murphet and Robert Meldrum return with a new dramatisation of rarely presented Beckett texts; six short works written towards the end of his life.
‘A man alone in a hut, in the valley, on the backroads, somewhere between the town and the outback, between the sky and the dazzling land. Six short, unpredictable episodes on his journey along the blurred boundary between day and night, between living and dying, out of a conscious life into that threshold, alternately terrifying, revelatory, awesome, prior to the final shutdown.’ Murphet and Meldrum explain.
‘These are joyously, shockingly real vignettes, filled not with philosophical thought on Life or
Death, but on the mere ordinariness of existence: a table, a wicker chair, a window, a beech
tree, an old hat, the sound of nightingales, a handful of yellow flowers. It has been our delight over the past 12 months to find ways of bringing them alive for a modern audience.’
These pieces attempt to present the experience of dying – not traumatically, but carefully and irreversibly.
The chance to experience these rare Beckett pieces live on stage is a must for Beckett and theatre lovers alike.
July 10 – 26
