‘Terrified’ Norris takes on Beckett in stage return
Former National Theatre director Rufus Norris will return to the stage for the first time, directing an acclaimed soprano in her first acting role as part of a Beckett festival.
As part of a biennial celebration of the Irish playwright’s work organised by Arts Over Borders, Norris will direct the singer Claire Booth in Beckett’s frenetic Not I at Reading University’s Beckett Research Centre, home of the Beckett Archive.
“I have always been terrified of Beckett” Norris said. “There is something so open and yet so unforgivingly precise in his writing, and this is never more so than in Not I. The text is everything and any attempt at ‘understanding’ it, in the usual sense, risks compromising its utter integrity. Charting a course through it has been a profound lesson in trust and humility.”
The performances will be part of the two week biennial staged between Ireland and the UK, organised by Arts Across Borders and its general director Séan Doran. Booth will take on a dramatic monologue alone in a pitch-black space in which only the performer’s mouth is highlighted. “Delving into Beckett's extraordinary monodrama, Not I, through its profound musicality, has been a revelation” Booth (pictured above) said. “Under the expert guidance of Rufus Norris we have uncovered something truly operatic in Not I's emotional scope, shaped by one woman's dogged resolve to ‘try something else… think on something else’."
Not I will be performed in the Minghella Studios, University of Reading, on September 19 and 20.
Norris stood down at the National Theatre last year after ten years, and Not I will mark his return to directing.