Play/Not I by Beckett dir Natalie Abrahami
Natalie Abrahami (see Stage profile here) has won the James Menzies-Kitchen directing award and her production of Beckett’s Play/Not I recieved good reviews at the BAC.
I have to declare a possible bias as she’s directed a reading of one my plays, Yellow Men and I think she is an intelligent, thoughtful and sharp director with vision and importantly is lovely as well. In my opinion, the writer-director relationship works best with an intelligent director who you get along with. Vision is a plus but is perhaps less important with a living writer to help out than it is for, let’s say Greek tragedy.
Abrahami directed Beckett’s Play / Not I very elegantly. Both pieces involve restriction. The first, three characters stuck in urns and mired in a ménage. The second, a pair of lips or more accurately “mouth” as Beckett describes it.
This constriction forces sharp direction if the performances are to be successful. The smallest actions noted. I observed the moments of blinking. The lack of expression except at crucial moments. The lifting or not of heads. All very precise and the good direction obvious for being subtle. The only aspect that I was indifferent too, was the (in my view) slight overuse of smoke/dry ice at the start.
I hope and expect to see Natalie Abrahami to go on to direct more brilliant productions in the future.
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About me
I'm a playwright and investment analyst. I have a broad range of interests: food, gardening, innovation & intellectual property, sustainability, architecture & design, writing and the arts. I sit on the board of Talawa Theatre Company and advise a CIS investment trust on socially responsible investments.
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Recent Work
Recent plays include, for theatre: Nakamitsu, Yellow Gentlemen, Lost in Peru, Lemon Love. For radio: Places in Between (R4), Patent Breaking Life Saving (WS).
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Nakamitsu
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Yellow Gentlemen
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Nice playwright’s blog.