Review: ON BECKETT at A.C.T. Serves Up Bill Irwin's Enthralling Take on the Iconic Writer's Work

Even if the plays of Samuel Beckett are not exactly your cup of tea, Bill Irwin's entrancing On Beckett just might be. Currently enjoying a brief run at A.C.T., Irwin's celebration of the "famously difficult" (his words, not mine) Irish writer is very, very funny, at times quite moving, and fairly brimming with old-fashioned entertainment. This is neither hagiography nor one of those wearying treatises by a fervent acolyte that aims to browbeat us into submission. Indeed, Irwin acknowledges upfront that even he finds Beckett's uniquely tragicomic writing frustratingly opaque at times. It also helps that Irwin is a clown nonpareil who unearths the copious humor that often goes unmined in productions of Beckett's plays.

The evening is conceived and performed solely by Irwin, and he knows the territory inside and out. He has often initially struggled with Beckett's more baffling passages only to find that they eventually begin to "sound like the inside of my own mind." He has also acted in several productions of Beckett's best-known work, Waiting for Godot, opposite a mind-boggling roster of A-list stage actors including Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, John Goodman, John Glover, Stephen Spinella and Dennis O'Hare. Irwin's script alternates between his freewheeling musings on Beckett's writing from his perspective as an actor and excerpts from various works including Texts for Nothing and Godot. I can assure you this is not nearly as dry as it sounds, as Irwin proves to be a most congenial host, with an easygoing warmth, sly wit and propensity for self-deprecation that keep any potential pomposity at bay.

He also is a most helpful guide through Beckett's sometimes mystifying oeuvre, offering insights into the way Irish vaudeville underpins his worldview, and savoring absurdities such as the fact that Beckett was a native English speaker whose career really only took off once he started writing in French, and then had to reverse-engineer his most famous works back into English. Who would do such a thing? Why, the conundrum is positively Beckettian! Irwin also seems aware that the density of Beckett's language needs ample breathing room, so between the excerpts he offers up some delightfully dishy stories of performing Godot on Broadway and demonstrates why bowler hats and baggy-pants clowning are such an integral part of Beckett's ethos.

And it is as a clown that Irwin simply has no peer. Even at the age of 72, he remains as rubber-limbed and rubber-faced as ever. He can seemingly transform himself instantly into just about anyone on the planet with only the slightest shift in posture and dialect. Watching Irwin's wizardry, I was reminded of Lucille Ball's uncanny ability to ground her humor in recognizable human behavior. What makes his hapless characters so funny and endearing is that he locates the humanity in each one, so that in laughing at them we're actually laughing at ourselves.

Working within a black void of a stage set, Irwin is more than ably abetted by Michael Gottlieb's virtuoso lighting which has a whole bag of tricks up its sleeve. One moment Irwin is lit in flat, lecture-presentation style, the next only his face and red bowtie are illuminated, giving him a spectral look that speaks to that sense of existential angst that lurks under so much of Beckett's writing. Gottlieb matches Irwin's versatility to such an extent that often it was hard to believe from scene to scene we were seeing the same man up there onstage.

The ever-honest Elaine Stritch famously remarked to Nathan Lane while he was gearing up to do Godot with Irwin, "Oh Nathan, if that play isn't funny, it's one long f***ing night in the theater." Well, I can assure you that On Beckett is anything but. It is a swift 90 minutes chock full of beguiling insights on what it means to be human. And it's damn funny to boot.

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Performances of On Beckett continue through October 23rd only at A.C.T.'s newly renamed Toni Rembe Theater, 415 Geary Street, San Francisco, CA. Running time is approximately 90 minutes, no intermission. For tickets and additional information, visit www.act-sf.org.

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