Never ones to do things by halves, the Gate Theatre's strolling players have been taking the Melbourne Festival by storm with not one, not two, but five Beckett productions. For this, the Gate's first jaunt down under in three decades, the Oz
theatre critics have thus far been queuing up to heap praise on their readings of Uncle Sam. After witnessing Waiting For Godot at the Victorian Playhouse, the lass from The Age lost the run of herself entirely: "You won't see a better Godot this century," she blubbed. The Herald Sun wrote: "For the ultimate in projection, diction and comic timing, every student of theatre should see this gem, directed with breathtaking finesse by Walter D. Asmus. Not a nuance is missed by Barry McGovern (Vladimir), Johnny Murphy (Estragon), Alan Stanford (Pozzo) and Pat Kinevane (Lucky) or Diarmuid Lawlor, who plays Boy."
Catalpa, Donal O'Kelly's brilliant one-man play about the rescue of six Fenian convicts in Western Australia in the last century, originally produced by Red Kettle, is a new addition to the theatrical canon, but it also has been raved over in The Age: "Catalpa is intimate, absorbing theatre, a rewarding combination of strong narrative, suggestive characterisation, and above all, very fine acting. It is enhanced by composer-performer Trevor Knight's moody, suggestive music and soundscape, used precisely as it would be in a film, to raise the emotional temperature and set the scene. Yet because this is theatre and not film, we briefly occupy the same time and space as O'Kelly and it is a privilege to do so."
The play's links with Australia have been appreciated: "Which story is `history', we might ask: the public heroics or the private dislocations? As Australians watching O'Kelly's evocative and sympathetic performance, we might also consider where our allegiances lie and where we position ourselves in the post-colonial world."
Three more productions - Endgame, Krapp's Last Tape and I'll Go On - are being staged this week and the Gate crew and cast are being treated to a slap-up lunch with Ireland's Australian ambassador, Richard O'Brien (presumably not the same fella as scripted the Rocky Horror Picture Show).
