More Beckett tramp duos, this time held
outside across the lake from the Barbican Centre. The first piece featured a
blind tramp and another more malevolent one in a wheelchair. For me, it
conveyed a sense of the essential selfishness that is the backdrop to human
interactions, as well as the lurking threat. This was so even when there is a
co-dependency. It is not difficult t extrapolate this idea to romantic
relationships that are one thing on the surface but can degenerate to quite
another because of a mere change or acknowledgement of feelings.
The second piece had two tramps going
through their daily routine of getting out of and back into their sleeping
bags. One was slow and arthritic with every movement an effort; the other lept
out of his bag to do his press-ups. They shared the same set of clothes and a
filthy old banana. Each moved the sleeping other along a notch in the position
in which they were sleeping. They were woken for their day by an anonymous rod
that poked them into life and the performance was against the backdrop of a
sign declaring that “The only sin is the sin of being born”.
The backdrop was a fittingly a dull London
sky that produced quite persistent rain for much of the performances. The only
detraction of this was the distraction from the words of Rough for Theatre
which were, of course, not to be missed.
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