This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on May 9, 2016.

When Nicole-Ann Thomas (pic) first encountered Irish novelist and playwright Samuel Beckett’s work years ago, she told herself that one day, she would direct one of his plays. This week, the theatre actress will be directing not one, but four short plays by the influential playwright as the headlining show for theatrethreesixty’s 3rd annual arts festival. 

Despite being established two years ago, the fledgling theatre company has proven to be an emerging front runner in the local arts scene, helmed by artistic director Christopher Ling, along with playwright Nandang Abdul Rahman and Thomas, who teaches theatrical biomechanics in the company’s Actor’s Gym training programme. 

It was Ling who urged her to take on Beckett from the perspective of the director’s chair when the team discussed their festival line-up. “I did a Beckett residency with a specialist about eight or nine years ago. I acted in some of these works,” explains Thomas, adding that the works are challenging for any actor or director. 

To say the Nobel laureate is a complicated figure would not be understating him. Known for his minimalistic works, the modernist Beckett was a key figure of the absurdist theatre movement that arose predominantly from the early post-World War II years. Far removed from what usually makes theatre, he believed in doing away with the structures that form standard storytelling, focusing only on what’s left.

And what’s left is often a prodding outlook on the human existence. “When someone does something by Beckett, I think everyone should just come experience it. There’s something in the way he writes, where it’s pares down to just being human. He strips everything off and goes down to the core essence. When you have nothing, no ego, no material things, what is left?” she expounds. 

Thomas states that this was what drew her to Beckett’s works — its timelessness and relevance to everyone and anyone, even if they may not be able to understand immediately what they are watching. “I can attest to that,” she smiles. “Sometimes you get his plays a few days after, for some they might get it straight away, and for others, they think ‘what did I just see?’” 

Not that Beckett was ever being deliberately vague, though he certainly challenged his audiences to find their own closure. “He only gives you what you need. You have to discover it for yourselves. And they are flexible to interpretation, even though he has a clear idea of everything he did,” says Thomas.

Two of the four well-known plays she chose — Not I and Footfalls, were ones she had acted in before, counting the former the hardest work she has taken on as an actor. A monologue that shows only a mouth moving in an otherwise pitch-black space, the jumbled and frantic pace denotes the struggle of a woman seeking to be understood as she recalls her fractured memories in third person. 

In the rhythmic Footfalls, a woman in her 40s paces while engaging in dialogue with an unseen mother. Both plays were later works of Beckett, along with Rockaby, a poetic recounting by an old woman in her last days, while a rocking chair swings. 

For Catastrophe, deemed his most overtly political work, as well as optimistic, a director and his aide “tweaks” the silent protagonist into the required image of pitiful dejectedness, adjusting his clothing and posture in an act of domination. 

Beckett’s play is also about its technically precise staging. “He also directed, and left extensive, precise notes about lighting and staging for each work, which his estate strictly protects,” says Thomas. It’s widely known that for example, in Not I, the mouth has to be seen to the effect of floating 8ft above the audience, while Footfalls has a physical beat coming from the actor’s feet as she paces, along which there is a strip of light of a specific length.   

“It’s also a great challenge for the actors,” highlights Thomas. “They have to apply things they’ve learnt that they wouldn’t think they needed to use. It pushes them a bit further, there are no special effects or fireworks to help them.” 

Handpicked by the director herself, the actors comprise of a solid, award-winning cast including Tria Aziz, Alvin Looi, Grace Ng, Anitha Abdul Hamid, and in a rare appearance, Ling himself. “I asked him, and he said ‘yes’ straight away. He was really excited,” she quips. However, it would be a familiar role, one of a director, she adds. 

“It’s not your standard play, with a standard storytelling style,” Thomas reiterates. “But even if you don’t like it, it’s fine, you will take away something, you will feel something. These works show the naked truth about being human.”

Bare Beckett will also mark the first full staging production to be presented at the new Black Box space theatrethreesixty now calls home, at Viva Residence, Kuala Lumpur, next to its sponsor, Tommy Le Baker. On from May 12 to 15, tickets are priced at RM35. To purchase, visit www.tixipro.com/theatrethreesixty.