Bewitched by the brilliance of Beckett

One of the most challenging pieces of theatre for an actor is how Ger Fitzgibbon describes Samuel Beckett’s Not I, which he is directing for GaitKrash at the Crawford Art Gallery from May 8-10. The production is back by popular demand having been performed there two months ago. Fitzgibbon, retired head of drama and theatre studies at UCC, has been a Beckett fan ever since he was given a copy of Waiting for Godot when he was 16.

“I was a theatre nerd at that stage and I just found Godot completely magical,” says Fitzgibbon. “It defied all of the normal logic of theatre. Apart from Not I, the last piece of Beckett I directed was Krapp’s Last Tape. I’ve taught Beckett for donkey’s years.”

Not I takes place in a darkened space illuminated only by a single light which focuses on an actress’s mouth. Regina Crowley plays a woman who has been virtually mute since childhood apart from occasional outpourings in which she alludes to an unspecified trauma.