Brilliant Beckett; fabulous Ford

It seems the sure mark of a good festival, is the sight of the anxious attendance racing from venue to venue. There has been a good deal of running going on in Kilkenny in recent days, as the 27th Arts Festival took to the streets, the galleries, the theatres and all other available venues, including the grassy banks of the Nore, where folk singers sang in the sunshine.

As the evening cooled, attention shifted to St Canice's Cathedral where pianist Peter Donohoe performed a programme of Schumann, Beethoven, Messiaen and Bach's French Suite No 5.

While the music and visual arts sustained a steady supply of riches, the triumph of the theatre programme had to be the Gare St Lazare Players' production of Beckett's Malone Dies. Conor Lovett in the title role, directed by Judy Hegarty, achieved a performance of near genius. Having previously impressed in the company's superb production of Molloy, Lovett brings a fascinating blend of ease, humour, bewilderment and intelligence of his own to match those same elements in the text. The result is hilarious, effortlessly well timed and true to Beckett. As the text has been intuitively well abridged by Hegarty and Lovett to meet the requirements of theatre, little is lost, every nuance is caught. The candour of the piece and its wry self-questioning mood shine through.

One man's death-bed vigil became a conversational revisiting of memory and above all, the impossible business of figuring out a life, its "mortal tedium" and its meaning - if any. Dressed in a rimless felt hat and two overcoats, Lovett as Malone set out to pass the final hours of life by telling stories. The theme is obvious: there is no hope. "I shall soon be quite dead at last in spite of it all." As he waits for the throes, Malone decides "I shall die tepid, without enthusiasm. I shall not watch myself die, that would spoil everything." Although it is so well known, indeed Malone Dies is one of those texts that live in the memory, Lovett makes it fresh. He catches the reasoning quality, as well as the pauses, the double takes, as if it is all suddenly dawning on him. It becomes this man's story, heard as if for the first time. Lovett's mobile, open face and his rich musical voice combined with relaxed, understated handling of the absurdities he is assessing and attempting to deflect, create an unforgettable theatre experience that goes beyond performance and becomes life. Gare St Lazare Players continue touring tomorrow night at Garter Lane, Waterford with Molloy, while Malone Dies runs at the Civic Theatre Tallaght from September 19th to 23rd. As his Molloy and now his Malone suggest, Lovett could become the definitive Beckett actor.

Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1902) is a powerful feat of storytelling and draws on his preoccupation with man's vulnerability and corruptibility. The story of Mr Kurtz is rife with a palpable metaphysical terror. Adapted for solo performance with James Auden as the narrator Marlow, the sailor who has witnessed another man's hell, it falls short of the book, no doubt because the text itself is so remarkable. For all Auden's verbal polish, the grandeur of Conrad's dark, atmospheric tale and the introduction of other characters (most notably the crazed young Russian runaway and a repulsively sinister Kurtz) Auden and the Royal Shakespeare Company Fringe Festival never travelled beyond a competent, rather mannered delivery conveying his disapproval of the ivory traders.

Auden's presentation was an archly detached performance pitched at a clever, crisp recitation, too larded with irony and modulated gestures to engage the emotions. Marlow lives in the imagination as a shell-shocked messenger, Auden's interpretation was curiously impersonal, creating the impression that his Marlow had felt nothing.

US writer Richard Ford has an international following and an impressive contingent of his Irish readers packed out the conference hall-like venue in the ultra modern Kilkenny Ormonde Hotel. It was the largest audience I've ever seen at a literary event in Ireland, while the book signing afterwards reached Harry Potter dimensions. Hundreds of books appeared from pockets and bags, while the writer was eventually presented with a lottery ticket to sign - which he did. Ford read two new stories, both of which will be published next year in his new collection, A Multitude of Sins.

"On the drive over to the Nicholsons' for dinner - their first in some time - Marjorie Reeves told her husband Steven Reeves that she had had an affair with George Nicholson (their host) a year ago, but that it was all over with now and she hoped he - Steven - could not be mad about it and go on with life", began Ford. Her matter of fact confession causes her husband to pull over by the reservoir "dark and shadowy and calmly-mirrored in the late Spring twilight". The perfect balance of the literary and conversational takes over as the couple emerge as real people with their own histories, through Ford's deft characterisation and feel for detail. Relationships and the random choices made by individuals interest Ford, who remarked that he sees writers as policeman in that they also tell people what to do and how to live. The story, Ground Clutter, possesses the urgency of the moment as well as the texture of a life. Ford is a good reader, relaxed while always conveying a trace of danger, of things poised to fall apart. When introducing his second story, Reunion, which has already appeared in The New Yorker, he described it as a homage to John Cheever, who also wrote a story of that title. Ford advised his listeners to read it.

"When I saw Mack Bolger, he was standing beside the bottom of the marble steps that brings travellers and passers-by to and from the balcony of the main concourse in Grand Central" recalls the narrator. The description of the man and the busy train station act as a prelude for telling the story of his affair with Bolger's wife and how it all ended. The voice shares the reflective tone of the Frank Bascombe of Independence Day, a man who has moved on from the lost self of The Sportswriter. Ford sees his stories as cautionary tales, the mood is: "this is what can happen - and does". Two stories read aloud to a silent gathering in a hotel as cars outside passed by the open windows. Inside, lives were re-written. Ford is one of the finest writers in the world and most of those present in Kilkenny know it.