Footfalls & Rockaby // Jermyn Street Theatre, Ustinov Studio Bath 2021
by Samuel Beckett
director: Richard Beecham
lighting designer: Ben Ormerod
sound designer: Adrienne Quartly
photographer: Steve Gregson
★★★★★ “This is theatre built from anguish, longing and bleached bones: exquisite. Simon Kenny’s design carves the tiny stage into stark cells in which Emmerson’s May in Footfalls, and Phillips’ old woman in Rockaby, are imprisoned. Emmerson obsessively paces an oblong of floor demarcated by tubes of white light; Phillips rocks herself to eternal sleep on a chair enclosed in a glowing cube. All else is inky nothingness.” The Times
★★★★★ “Powerful and affecting, with an ascetic aesthetic and arresting sounds and visuals.” The Arts Desk
★★★★ ”A chilling drama that distorts all sense of time - less a theatrical doublebill than a séance. It is staged in near-darkness, bar a few white striplights to demark two playing-spaces – a narrow strip of black wooden floorboards for Footfalls; for Rockaby, a rocking chair in a cage-like cube of lights.” The Telegraph
★★★★ ”There’s a precision to the staging that echoes the text… Simon Kenny’s cubist set, the catwalk of Footfalls next to the cell-like room of Rockaby. This is difficult, but seminal, viewing.” The Stage
★★★★ ”Simon Kenny squeezes two complementary sets on to the stage: a raised walkway for Footfalls and a cube for Rockaby, both structures outlined with tubes of white light. A reflection within the auditorium makes it appear as if May walks an endless corridor in the former, while the cube suggests the window position of the unnamed woman desperate to see and be seen.” The Guardian