THEATRE: THE END

Ironically, when Samuel Beckett’s short story Suite (later, La Fin) first appeared in John-Paul Sartre’s 1946 magazine Les Temps Modernes, it was the beginning only, as Simone de Beauvoir had refused to publish the end. It seems pedantic to censor the finale of something that is from first breath to last, despairingly heavy with death, yet desperately clinging to life. When a man (superbly embodied by Robert Menzies) is evicted from an asylum, he proceeds to shuffle his broken, odorous body about a nameless city (much changed, and yet in effect the same). He is met with both random spurts of kindness amidst interminable cruelty; a meal-laden girl with long red plaits, a cruel houseowner, a hospitable cave-dweller, alms givers and asses. This is in essence an anti-heroes swansong, narrated as he crosses the river to the empty, all-encompassing relief of eternity. Beckett is not for everyone; some walked out, others effused with bravos. Played by a lesser actor than Menzies, I might’ve agreed with the former. But the fierce beauty of Beckett’s prose, combined with the heart-rending simplicity of a man, standing before you, intimating his final moments, is truly mesmerising, from beginning to end.

Until May 9, Belvoir St Downstairs, 25 Belvoir St, Surry Hills, $32-42, 9699 3444, belvoir.com.au