UMBC Department of theatre: Maryland Stage Company-"Review" of Beckett's "Play"

2000
Play, That Time, and Ohio Impromptu
by Samuel Beckett
All plays directed by Xerxes Mehta

“ ‘ A Director staging Beckett is, although committed to the prescriptions, rather free,’ notes the American director, Xerxes Mehta, also the president-elect of the International Beckett Society. His interpretation with the Maryland Stage Company of three one act plays (Play, That Time and Ohio Impromptu) was with out a doubt the high point of the festival thus far: chilling terror of form yet a soft actor’s touch. Marek Kedzierski, a polish director and co-director of the festival, called these hard core Beckett drills the Americans were performing ‘High Tech-Purgatory.’ Mehta’s interpretation of Play, which deals with the tortures of jealousy, is cool, funny and very fast. The three faces of the characters (two women and one man), placed in human-sized urns, are carved out of the total darkness of the stage, by cold, white light. The spotlights cue the delivery of lines at great speeds and the manic repetition of everlasting fresh pain….Mehta and company succeed at a frighteningly fascinating radicalization. Next to Play, The Maryland Stage Company performed an enchanting version of Beckett’s most beautiful, most tender, yet saddest play Ohio Impromptu. Anyone who missed these performances and who loves theatre should consider jetting to Baltimore, Maryland to see these astounding theatre artists on home turf.”
Peter Laudenbach, Berliner Tagesspiegel (2000)

“As a long time follower of productions of Samuel Becket’s plays throughout Europe and the United States, I don’t normally go to Beckett festivals expecting much that is fresh or eye-opening. The Maryland Stage Company productions of Samuel Beckett’s Play, That Time and Ohio Impromptu, directed by Xerxes Mehta, however, were standout achievements in the l0-day festival ‘Beckett in Berlin 2000. All were jewels of precision and perception, shedding more substantial light on Beckett’s humor, poetry and rigorous theatrical means than any of the other productions (many by famous Beckett specialists) … The Maryland Stage Company’s work should be considered in the first rank of Beckett performance …”
Jonathan Kalb, Associate Professor of Theater at Hunter College, City University of New York. (2000)

“Amid the rich and diverse theater and discussion offered at the seven day symposium and fortnight-long theater festival dubbed ‘Beckett in Berlin 2000’ in September of 2000, a pair of productions in what may be Samuel Beckett’s most technically demanding theater work, Play, stole the show. The first was Xerxes Mehta’s staging at the Akademie der Kunste on l8 September with Wendy Salkind, Peggy Yates, and Bill Largess. It was so stunning an achievement…. Mehta’s production of Play made no concession on the speed of delivery, no concession on the da capo, and so may be the first English language production to get the details right and thus to allow the full dramatic impact of this play to come through. It is testimony, yet again, that staging Beckett Beckett’s way, and getting it right, down to the finest details, produces an extraordinary evening of theatre.”
S.E. Gontarski, Journal of Beckett Studies (2000)

Sources:
http://www.umbc.edu/theatre/msc_productions.html