A Piece of Monologue by Samuel Beckett

Drama On One concludes its Beckett Season with A Piece of Monologue, performed by Barry McGovern, and directed by Daniel Reardon. A Piece of Monologue is introduced by Gerry Dukes, whose stage adaptation, with Barry McGovern, of Beckett's post-war trilogy of novels as I’ll Go On has played around the world.

A Piece of Monologue was originally written for the actor David Warrilow and first performed in 1979. A man, Speaker, opens with the arresting line, ’Birth was the death of him’, before describing fleeting aspects of a life, most likely his own: from successive lightings of a lamp; to the ripping of photos of loved ones, from a wall, like memories from the passage of time; to the images of an open grave and a coffin 'on its way’. As Gerry Dukes explains, the piece becomes‘a kind of threnody, a lament in prose, for all of those deplorable developments in our endings.’

Performed by Barry McGovern

Directed by Daniel Reardon

Sound by Mark Dwyer and Tommy O’Sullivan

Producer: Kevin Reynolds.