Theatre review: Lessness

An Taibhdhearc, Galway

When William Burroughs described to Samuel Beckett his famous ‘cut-up’ technique — a text is produced by cutting it up and then imposing a random new order upon the shreds — the Irishman was dismissive, reportedly telling the American: “That’s not writing — it’s plumbing.” It didn’t prevent Beckett from composing short prose in the vein of the Burroughs cut-up style, in 1969.

The result was ‘Lessness’, a ‘story’ of short fragments pitched together at random, yet with seductive shades of meaning.