THE Gate Theatre's Beckett Festival, transplanted to the Lincoln Center in New York this week, had already provoked an avalanche of column inches in the local media before it even opened on Tuesday night.
The New York Times, which had already carried a substantial welcome for the festival from Mel Gussow on Saturday, devoted a further full page spread, and more, to a detailed preview of the festival on Sunday. Alan Riding's piece opened on the assumption that US readers might find it hard to identify Beckett as Irish. Questioned on this, Michael Colgan, "the Gate's high voltage director, looked uncharacteristically uneasy. `A writer as great as Samuel Beckett belongs to the world,' he said as if enunciating an article of faith. `But yes, this is an act of reclamation'."
Several writers felt the familiar need to reassure potential punters that Beckett is not so gloomy as he is painted. But Rackstraw Downes, refreshingly described in the same paper as "a landscape painter and Beckett fan", doesn't pull his punches. Beckett is "an antidote to the fluff, window dressing and salesmanship you're sick of ... to be ready for him, all that's required are an eager ear, free mind and strong stomach". Even Sam might have nodded (tentatively) at that assessment.
Other audience warm ups include a strong and sensitive showcase on Rosaleen Linehan in the New Yorker by photographer Richard Avedon, and a declaration by Vogue that the festival is "one of the theatrical events of the year". If we didn't already know that the Gate is as good at doing Beckett as it is at doing publicity, we might worry that the theatre is setting itself up for a fall, as it were. This time, however, there is good reason to be confident that the reviews should match the previews.
Meanwhile, at a slightly lowlier level, but also cause for celebration, TEAM Theatre Company is presenting its production of John McArdle's Two Houses at the Summerfest 1996 International Festival of Theatre in Education in Manhattan, from tomorrow for five days.
