Andrew Haydon
posted 9 May 2006

In the second double bill in the Barbican’s current Beckett centenary celebrations season the playwright’s 1963 classic Play was teamed up with the less often performed 1982 piece Catastrophe. This is an astute pairing of two of the playwright’s most visually striking pieces; the three potted heads of Play contrasting with the directed movements of 'The Protagonist' of Catastrophe.

Play, in script form, is one of Beckett’s most rigorously prescribed pieces. Policed by the playwright’s notoriously litigious estate, productions of the piece seldom vary and so, the theory goes; if you’ve seen one Play, you’ve seen them all. This is not quite true. With every new cast and director come changes in inflection and intention. The very opacity of the play’s meaning invites differing emphases to be placed on the utterances of the three motionless heads, which protrude from their individual urns. More than this, with every viewing of Play new fragments from the fractured, monotone babble issuing from the three speakers assume higher significance. New elements, new connections spring out. Play is one of those rare works of art which improves with every viewing, containing meaning deep enough to withstand repeated scrutiny. On a more superficial level, this production held its own among recent outings of the text, without ever distinguishing itself.

With Catastrophe, however, the Beckett estate seem to have momentarily taken its eye off the ball. And more’s the pity. Here, in Selina Cartmell’s production, are innovations aplenty. In almost every detail this production looks as if the director were attempting a production of Catastrophe as performed in the style of Howard Barker’s company The Wrestling School. Every detail is spot-on: the white-noise soundscape, the mittel-European Cold War costumes, the trenchcoats, the mannered speech and movement, the lighting. Everything about it screams Wrestling School.

This is a pity, because I suspect were Howard Barker ever to direct a production of Catastrophe he’d make a much better fist of it. Here it feels like a rehash of second-hand ideas and images forced onto a play which they don’t fit, with all the humanity and interest of the characters mangled by clumsy application of over-stylised movement and speech. The key note of this production is the dedication of the play to Václav Havel, which has prompted the director to scurry in search of ways to make every aspect of the production as clearly as possible about Cold War Eastern Bloc totalitarianism. The Director’s assistant wears her hair in a manner reminiscent of Helga from ‘Allo ‘Allo, while the Director himself is decked out in a fur-collared coat. It is a testament to the power of the play that, even in this lacklustre production, the sight of the forlorn 'protagonist' - who, give or take a wide-brimmed hat, uncannily anticipates the photos which emerged from Abu Ghraib two decades later - still retains the power to unsettle an audience.