IF Samuel Beckett had lived to be 90 this year after all, he could hardly have wished for a better birthday present than the current Beckett Festival in New York, presented by Dublin's Gate Theatre. Over a period of three weeks, it will present the performance of every play Beckett wrote for the theatre at one of America's most prestigious venues.
The array of actors performing the challenging Beckettian roles runs like a who's who of the Irish stage Barry McGovern, David Kelly, Rosaline Linehan, Stephen Brennan, Jane Brennan and Daphne Carroll, Alan Stanton, Susan Fitzgerald, Johnny Murphy, Tom Hickey and the list goes on.
Extensive pre-opening coverage in the Big Apple's press ensured such healthy ticket sales that most of the shows were sold out before the run opened. Thursday's rave review in the New York Times managed to polish off any leftover seats. With almost unheard of verve, Vincent Canby pronounced the Beckett marathon "the event of the new theatrical season" and concluded "see this seminal work."
To complement the theatre performances, Ireland House and the Maison Eranaise at New York University hosted The Beckett Symposia, an extensive programme of seminars, round table talks, exhibitions and readings under the direction of the university's Beckett scholar Tom Bishop. He will chair the first symposium, Beckett And The 20th Century Theatre, the second symposium, Beckett And Ireia rid, will be chaired by Professor Dennis Donoghue of UCD and NYU. It may provide an answer to one question that has been repeatedly raised in the press. "Was Beckett French or Irish?"
At a party for the festival's kickoff after the third performance of Waiting For Godot. French director Pierre Chabert had a one word solution to the French/Irish Beckett identity question BOTH! No, of course he was Irish," continued Chabert, but he is also of the French culture and he is also universal. It was a very positive thing for me, as a French director, to work with Irish actors. They have the essence of Beckett.
Walter Asmus, the director of Waiting For Godot, has been particularly praised for this work with Irish actors, "It is a hard job to get it really refined, and really good, and, importantly, to make it original instead of reproducing something that was good," he said. "I have gone my own way with it, but I would still say that I owe everything to Beckett. And think he would be very pleased with this festival."
Elsewhere at the party, which was held at the Lincoln Center's Kaplan Penthouse, familiar faces chatted over cocktails and food. Attending were Patrick Bedford (on the Gate's board of trustees) John Rockwell, director of the Lincoln Center Festival 1996, and Nat Levinson, the director of the Lincoln Center itself.
Other attendees included Irish consul general Donal Hamill, Felim Donnolon of the Arts Council, Eithne Healy, Tony O'Dalaigh, Gabrielle Croak from AIB, Dr James Knowlson, head of Beckett Studies at the University of Reading in England, and Milo O'Shea was there with his wife Kitty. Laura Pels of the Laura Pels Foundation co-hosted the party with the Lincoln Center.
With such a splendid gathering, the party was lacking in only one vital and very obvious aspect namely the New York Irish theatre community, who have been presenting Irish drama in the city since the mid 1980s. Usually when a Dublin based Irish production visits, there is a lively and supportive turnout of local actors, none of whom seemed to have, received invitations to festival shows or any related events this time around.
As photographers snapped and flashed around the room, Marie Rooney, deputy director of the Gate, attempted to take a break, but was torn between the hordes of people offering congratulations and the dreaded cellular phone in her bag. We have 19 actors performing, but of course the entire caravan encompasses more than that. Our official count is 49 people but spouses and other family members have flown over to join people here, and so we keep growing."
To keep energy levels up, Marie joins Gate fellows Michael Colgan and Tony O'Dalaigh on an early morning jog around the lake in nearby Central Park, much to their colleagues astonishment. Even more worrying, claim fellow Gate stalwarts, is talk of the trio taking up that extremely healthy pursuit, rollerblading, a custom hitherto unheard of in the annals of the Gate's history.
On the other end of the scale, perhaps (or at least New Yorkers would like to think so), there has been a little bit of discombobulation where New York's draconian anti smoking laws are concerned. According to assistant stage manager Brendan Galvin, bit's actually illegal to smoke a cigarette in a theatre here. If the fire alarm goes off, and the fire brigade are called, it's a $1,000 fine. So I'm running around like a school teacher trying to stop any backstage smoking!"
Johnny Murphy, known as a man who likes a cigarette, is not a happy camper. "In actual fact, I'm being driven mad!" he stated categorically. When you walk through Manhattan, with the amount of filth and dirt and smoky pollution being thrown up into your face from ears and trucks . . . what difference can a few cigarettes make?"
But apart from the eccentricities of New York life, things seem to be blooming. Especially with the continued good reviews and fall houses. The festival, wrote New York Newsday, "is, a treasure, an event, a rare total immersion privilege that defies the notion of festivals and even justifies coming in from the beach". Strong word indeed.
Elsewhere around town, Irish theatre is alive and well and living off Broadway, with the Irish Repertory Theatre in the throes of a successful summer production of Hugh Leonard's Da, and the burgeoning Daedalus Theatre Company preparing a production of Eclipsed by Galway playwright Patricia Burke Brogan for the autumn season.
Spotted at Beckett Festival performances since the opening were photographer Richard Avedon (whose Beckett photos are used in the programme), actors Olympia Dukakis, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Ron Silver, and none other than Jane Alexander, the woman at the helm of America's National Endowment for the Arts.
The festival will continue until August 11th, winding down with Endgame and Breath, Beckett's shortest (and some say most profound) play.