Go On
Linda McLean’s plays are all about humanity in all its messy, smudgy forms, so it’s a fine companion piece to Beckett.
Jane (Maureen Beattie) is training an Artificial Intelligence prototype, Jayne. One appears on a screen on a glowing cube, glugging down red wine in a suburban kitchen. The other is in person onstage.
The two halves, in essence, talk to themselves. McLean’s script is full of elliptical, messy chat and metaphysical conundrums. It alludes to the vital organs (“Do you think worry looks like a kidney?”) memory and motivation. The duo’s voices overlap, until there’s ambiguity over who the human is, and which is the replacement. Dominic Hill directs the intelligent, tender and fierce Beattie with a forensic eye.
Krapp’s Last Tape
The birthday boy Krapp is only as good as the peeling of his bananas. Niall Buggy is more sad clown than Bouffon in Dominic Hill’s latest version, and it works wonderfully.
Pickled in booze and thwarted ambition, it’s the details which make this noteworthy: the cardigan buttoned incorrectly; the banana hanging halfway out of his mouth like a toy party horn, the barely contained unhinged outbursts. Of course, there’s pathos and truth, as poignant and funny as the day it was created. This Krapp is like a warm blanket, albeit an itchy one.
Until October 9th, Tron Theatre, Glasgow
Hit The North 