FROM THE ARCHIVES:Actor Jack MacGowran was noted for being one of the most successful interpreters of Samuel Beckett's works. He helped popularise them through his one-man show, which packed the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin in 1962 – as described in this review by a critic signing him or herself AR. - JOE JOYCE
A PROPHET, they say, is not without honour, save in his own country, but on Friday night, an audience of nearly 1,000 at the Gaiety gave an enthusiastic reception to "End of Day", an entertainment from the works of Samuel Beckett, presented by Jack MacGowran. In judging the performance, it is necessary to distinguish sharply between the manner and the man.
The programme was based on Beckett's mime, "Act Without Words", and included passages from five plays, " Waiting for Godot", "Endgame", "Krapp's Last Tape", "All That Fall" and " From an Abandoned Work", and three novels, "Molloy", "Watt" and "The Unnameable".
With great wisdom and much imagination, Mr. MacGowran did not offer us isolated readings or selections; he drew on his sources continuously, presenting a coherent, unpunctuated entertainment, and it is an interesting comment on the unity of Beckett’s vision that such a course should have been possible, let alone effective.
On the other hand, certain pieces, notably the lyrical passage from " Krapp's Last Tape" describing the love scene on the river, suffered badly from being wrenched out of their context to be set in a necessarily arid framework. The mime "Act Without Words"suffered too, precisely because it was interrupted by speech.
Somewhat perversely, Mr. MacGowran, as if in an attempt to offset these disadvantages, devoted much of the second half of his programme to the soliloquy "From an Abandoned Work". This is a monologue without setting of any kind, but since it is intended for voice alone, it does not lend itself to personal presentation on a stage. When proper weight has been given to these formal objections, however, it must be emphatically stated that the entertainment went well.
Mr. MacGowran’s clear and sensitive interpretation showed how genuinely theatrical Beckett’s plays are, making the most of the humour, lyricism, sheer power and compassionate urgency of the pieces.
Mr. MacGowran demolished the caricature of Beckett as a gloomy obscure dramatist of dustbins, deformity and despair. His Beckett character was not perhaps as moving as one might have wished – with his skill in pointing the humour Mr. MacGowran inevitably drew some unwanted laughs – but his protagonist was always sympathetic, frequently impressive in his stoicism.
The direction by Donald McWhinney showed all the authority one could have wished or expected. To sum up, this original and imaginative venture was a success, but its value lay as an introduction to Beckett, not an interpretation.
http://url.ie/d7ek