Shades Through a Shade

Samuel Beckett Theatre, Trinity College Dublin

★★★★☆

Gare St Lazare Ireland is the brainchild of the theatrical power couple Judy Hegarty Lovett and Conor Lovett. The pair founded the theatre group in 1996, out of devotion to the dramaturgical legacy of one of Ireland’s greatest 20th-century writers, Samuel Beckett. Over the course of the next three decades the Lovetts pursued their project with the kind of single-minded intensity that would put even the most successful dramatists to shame: Hegarty Lovett has directed no fewer than 27 productions based on the Dublin author’s texts; Lovett has performed more than 20 roles based on the anguished, absurdist characters that populate Beckett’s universe, including what could be a record-breaking 60 performances as Lucky, in Waiting for Godot, as part of the Gate Theatre’s 50th-anniversary celebration in 2003.

So it should come as no surprise that Beckett’s presence looms large in Shades Through a Shade, receiving its premiere at Dublin Theatre Festival. The Gare St Lazare players are not only devout performers of his theatrical narratives, however; they also have a reputation for experimenting with and reinterpreting the playwright’s work while remaining faithful to his unique aesthetic.

In this new performance, surrounded by the constellation-like designs of the artist Morgan Doyle, the theatre troupe adopts an even more innovative playbook: starting with a reference to Belacqua Shuah, the protagonist of Beckett’s early short-story collection More Pricks Than Kicks, the production dives into a series of experimental vignettes that are tied together by loose, though effective, philosophical and literary themes.

Beckett’s own creation was a reference to the Belacqua found in The Divine Comedy, Dante’s 14th-century epic poem, which the performers recite from throughout, followed by passages from Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick, the medieval abbess and mystic Hildegard of Bingen, and the contemporary continental philosophers Giorgio Agamben and Jean-Luc Nancy (among others).

Shades Through a Shade is classic experimental theatre. Absent a traditional plot, each episode elapses and passes into the next without a clear line of continuity; characters are frequently interrupted, lose their focus, break the fourth wall and digress; and there are randomised elements, with leeway for (what feel like) spontaneous, non-repeatable occurrences.

For some this may sound like torture, but the strength of good experimental theatre lies precisely in its capacity to tear you loose from endlessly revisited narrative structures, in order to transport you elsewhere – not only into a new artistic form, which is genuinely engrossing albeit unfamiliar, but also into a new state of mind. As the play unfolds, the words, accidents and music wash over you, and the experience of an art form that continually pulls itself apart begins to register a tangible, psychological effect. It’s a challenge to describe, but this evasive quality is a sign that the experience is both scarce and worthwhile.

There are four actors and three musicians, though the distinction between them is frequently erased. The ensemble is excellent. Each contributes an individually arresting performance: Lovett’s agonised hesitation, Natasha Everitt’s dancerly forthrightness, Trey Lyford’s grateful buffoonery and Lux Lovett’s bemused fragility resonate forcefully with one another. A compelling original score by Benedict Schlepper-Connolly is played with at times jaw-dropping virtuosity by Simon Jermyn, Seán Mac Erlaine and Julia Spanu.

A wonderfully inventive and ambitious undertaking.

Continues at the Samuel Beckett Theatre, as part of Dublin Theatre Festival, until Saturday, September 28th