Review: FOOTFALLS & ROCKABY by Samuel Beckett at Jermyn Street Theatre 2 – 20 November & touring to Theatre Royal Bath

'Beautiful, eerie and horrifying' ★★★★★

Fragments across time, Samuel Beckett’s masterpieces Footfalls and Rockaby, give an impression of two different women’s lives in negative.

Existential in theme, Beckett seems to draw on his own life’s experiences in Ireland and elsewhere.   If there was ever any intension to show a kind of black humour, in the hands of director Richard Beecham the pieces are bleak. They are made compelling by the absolute dedication to the grim reality experienced by these women and a brilliant team to bring his vision to the audience. His story telling is extremely clear. In Footfalls, the woman has had some childhood trauma which has resulted in a closed life in which she waits to attend to her aging mother’s needs. 

In Rockaby, the old woman sits rocking or stands at the window in the mostly vain hope of seeing a human face at other windows on the street. It surely must speak to audience members who spent boring and lonely lives indoors during lockdown. For myself, living on the Algarve, the approach for lone elderly women was to open a window and chat with anyone passing by. This is a different culture but in Beckett’s play the isolation is a self-imposed horror.

Sound makes an important contribution in Footfalls. The resonant footsteps of Charlotte Emmerson as May, as she paces the floor, 9 steps in each direction. The voice over for Dame Siân Phillips as the mother, silky, rich and with beautiful tones – inimitably Phillips’ own trademark. Sound designer Adrienne Quartly occasional track like a house in pain, eerie and softly whining. Beckett never tells us about the trauma, we just experience the wasted life.

Finally, in Rockaby, Siân Phillips appears in person in the role of the elderly women. Mostly, the script is in voice over, with Phillips’ echoing some of the words. Throughout the piece there is a plea of ‘more’ and with each repetition Phillips gives a delicate shift in meaning. Her understanding of where it is all headed gives nuances to the profound poetry of Beckett’s script. 

Both pieces are beautiful, eerie and above all horrifying. I think when it’s my time, I’m going to live at a window in the Algarve.

Photography by Steve Gregson

Footfalls & Rockaby

At Jermyn Street Theatre

3 – 20 November 2021

Box Office: https://www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk/show/footfalls-rockaby/

Siân Phillips

PERFORMER

Siân won a BAFTA for her role in the BBC’s 1976 adaptation of I, Claudius. She has performed the titular roles in Ibsen's Hedda Gabler and George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to drama.

Charlotte Emmerson

PERFORMER

Charlotte is known for her roles in See No Evil: The Moors Murders, Casualty 1909 and Underworld and her radio work. She was most recently seen on stage in Alone in Berlin at Northampton’s Royal and Derngate.

Samuel Beckett

WRITER

Richard Beecham

DIRECTOR

Adrienne Quartly

SOUND DESIGNER

Ben Ormerod

LIGHTING DESIGNER

Simon Kenny

SET & COSTUME DESIGNER

Reviewer: Heather Jeffery is Editor of London Pub Theatres Magazine