The Arts Theatre occupies an illustrious place in the biography of Samuel Beckett, since it was here that Peter Hall presented the first English production of Waiting For Godot in 1955, with revolutionary consequences for the British stage.
Gari Jones's new staging at the Arts of two rarely performed Beckett 'roughs', or short sketches, dating from just after Godot is unlikely to have the same impact as that earlier production.
This is in part because of the slightly inferior quality of the plays. Rough For Theatre I, in which a blind beggar and a one-legged man in a wheelchair fail to strike up a mutually supportive relationship, is principally of interest for the light it throws on the genesis of the more celebrated Endgame.
Beginning with an arresting Magrittean visual tableau in which two bowler-hatted bureaucrats symmetrically frame a third bowler-hatted figure at a window, Rough For Theatre II has many of the familiar Beckettian elements - the vaudevillian patter, the unblinking focus on the absurdity of the human condition. But ultimately, it feels a bit like a Monty Python sketch.
Then there are the performances. Steve Harley (an odd choice, given he's the singer/songwriter of Cockney Rebel fame) and Mike Bennett lack the necessary precision of delivery to bring out the humour and pathos in the scripts, flirting instead with parody. Rough by name, rough by nature.
Until Sun, Arts Theatre, 6-7 Great Newport Street WC2, 9.30pm, Sun 7.30pm, £15, £12.50 concs. Tel: 0870 060 1742. Tube: Covent Garden
Rough For Theatre I & II
Arts Theatre
Great Newport Street, Covent Garden, WC2H 7JB
