'For the usual, at the usual'

In the early spring of 1985 Michael Colgan, the artistic director of the Gate Theatre in Dublin, asked the actor Barry McGovern if he would be willing to undertake a one-man show based on the work of Samuel Beckett. Barry, who had already played in a number of Beckett's plays for stage and radio, was more than willing. Michael Colgan intimated to Barry that the script for Beginning to End, derived from the body of his own work by Beckett for the actor Jacky MacGowran, would be available. MacGowran had toured that show to Dublin in the late sixties and had recorded an audio version for Claddagh Records in Dublin and, additionally, a video version for RTE, the national broadcaster in Ireland. Barry was tempted but finally reluctant to undertake a revival of that show because it had been so wonderfully "inhabited" by MacGowran.Nothing happened for a while until Barry and I were introduced to each other and discovered we shared a common passion for Beckett's work. Barry asked whether I would be interested in jointly assembling an actable script from that work. I was, indeed. We decided to re-read the entire canon and then come to a decision. This was arrived at fairly quickly-the source for the script was to be Beckett's so-called trilogy of post-war novels, Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable.We then met with Michael Colgan as producer who provided us with a theatrical template-the show was to be a late-night, one-man show in two acts the first of which was to be 50/55 minutes long and the second no more than 45 minutes. There we were then, the ocean of Beckett's incomparable prose before us and two thimbles in our hands, one slightly smaller than the other.The script achieved its final form by early July and premiered, under the direction of Colm O Briain, at the the Gate Theatre for the Dublin Theatre Festival in late September. The show was an immediate critical and commercial success and, very soon thereafter, set out on a touring schedule which has brought and continues to bring Barry McGovern to many places. Soon after the opening when Michael Colgan asked me to specify what I wanted for my work on the script my answer was simple: a return ticket to Paris and a meeting with Samuel Beckett.I'll Go On toured to Paris in April 1986 for the week-long celebrations to mark Beckett's eightieth birthday. He sent a telegram to the company on the opening night to say he was with us "in spirit" but would not attend a performance. The next day Michael Colgan advised me to be outside my hotel on Sunday morning (April 27) at ten o'clock and to be ready for "an important rendezvous." A taxi brought four of us (Michael, Barry, the late Rupert Murray-the lighting designer for I'll Go On-and me) to the plm hotel on the boulevard Saint-Jacques where we trooped in to the Petit Cafe to await the arrival of Beckett. Though I felt like Moses must have felt as he approached the burning bush I still had enough presence of mind to arrange the chairs so that Beckett's would be directly opposite mine. If my tongue deserted me, my eyes and ears would still function normally. He appeared punctually at 11 o'clock, greeted each of us with great courtesy and we all sat down around a small table for coffee and conversation. There was no formality, just easy talk among friends. The talk was of Dublin, winners of the Epsom Derby, Croker's Acres, the vicissitudes of theatre touring, the vocal capacities of parrots, the fuss of birthdays, the vestigial significations of anglicised Irish placenames.Beckett was interested in hearing about our short run in Paris as he had been fully apprised of the quality of our work by his Dublin informants. He went on to tell us of difficulties encountered the previous month by Billie Whitelaw who was touring his Footfalls and Rockaby in Australia. She was playing in a studio theatre in Melbourne and, simultaneously, a play about the Vietnam war with a raucous soundtrack of Bruce Springsteen's music was playing on the main stage and was clearly audible in the studio. …