Billie Whitelaw and Samuel Beckett in rehearsal for ROCKABY, 1984.
[Follies of God]
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Mel Gussow, a wonderful writer and critic, was born on December 19, 1933. Here are excerpts from a piece on the collaboration of playwright Samuel Beckett and actress Billie Whitelaw, from February 14, 1984."Were Billie Whitelaw to teach a class or to give a demonstration in acting Beckett, it would be in stark contrast to Ian McKellen's evening of ''Acting Shakespeare.''
She would deal with such consequential minutiae as the quarter-pause, acting while blindfolded and acting only with one's eyes, synchronizing the rhythm of a rocking chair with one's own voice on tape; and she would discuss the dramatic power of stasis in performance."
While acting Samuel Beckett, Miss Whitelaw has ritualistically paced back and forth across the stage in the half-light, been confined in an earthenware jug and she has been buried up to her neck in sand. In ''Not I,'' only her flaming red lips were visible to the audience. At the same time, she has had to reveal her most private emotions, issuing both silent and verbalized screams of anguish. For an actress who began her career in English kitchen-sink drama and who was dubbed ''the female Albert Finney,''
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In every sense, beginning with the choice of actress, the evening is authorized. Miss Whitelaw's kinship with the theater of Beckett is irrevocably linked with the playwright himself, who for many years has been her close guide and mentor.'''I've never done a piece of Beckett's without him,' she said one morning before rehearsal. Their first collaboration was ''Play'' in 1964 at Britain's National Theater; for the production, Beckett visited London from his home in Paris."'The only way I can do it is to hear his voice or imagine him saying it,' Miss Whitelaw said. 'He reads his own work beautifully.' Before she undertakes one of his plays, they meet either in Paris or in London and later they speak - and even rehearse - over the telephone. After he reads a play to her, they will often read it together, and each will automatically begin to flutter a hand in rhythm with the words.'''It's become sort of a joke between us,' she said. 'We both sit there conducting each other.'
In rehearsal, Miss Whitelaw will do that characteristic hand movement by herself, and in performance, secretly, she will continue to flutter a foot or a toe."Describing their collaboration, she said, 'He has a very definite idea of how he wants it to go, but within that, I can emotionally take off on my own. In 'Footfalls,' he said, 'I want you to say these two words very quietly.' I said, 'O.K., let's see how quietly I can say them,' and, in fact, when I did it, I didn't make any sound at all. I just mouthed the words, and it was quite effective. I usually take what he says and take it a little bit further.''
"Miss Whitelaw marks up her copy of a Beckett manuscript with brief, sometimes cryptic remarks. ''Rockaby'' calls for her to be shrouded as an old woman trapped in a chair while rocking herself to death. On her script, she wrote such comments as ''reaching out - to other lonely creatures,'' ''soft, monotonous, no colour, soothing, rhythmic,'' and toward the end of the play, ''strongest drive toward death'' and the single word, ''Hurray!'' As she read the lines to explain her notations, her right hand gracefully began to flutter."
She indicated that Beckett is adamant about diminishing ''the emotional color'' of the dialogue. Said Miss Whitelaw, 'I think what he means is 'no acting.' ' Still, she finds shadings of emotion within and between the words. In all her consultations with Beckett, she said, she will never ask him what something means, and she will rarely ask him about motivation. When they were working on ''Footfalls,'' a daughter's dirge about her mother, she asked him, with some trepidation, if her character was supposed to be dead. ''He thought for quite a long time and then he said, 'Well, let's say, you're not . . . quite . . . there,' and I knew exactly what he meant.''
"Though she does not feel her sanity is in jeopardy with ''Rockaby'' and ''Footfalls,'' she takes them both personally, relating them to herself and her mother. In common with Beckett's own mother and the character in ''Footfalls,'' Miss Whitelaw's mother had the habit of pacing back and forth. 'For about five years before my mother died, she had Parkinson's syndrome. She would sit with a blank staring face, hour after hour. I used to sit and watch her. I would think, 'Oh, God in heaven, what's going on inside your mind?'
When I do 'Rockaby,' I have a picture in my mind - I think in pictures - of someone staring out a window at a skyscraper block. Perhaps there may be one other person out there. How awful it must be to sit there waiting for death.'
"Miss Whitelaw's mother died just before the premiere of ''Rockaby.'' When the actress was going through her mother's possessions, she came across a jar of cold cream and realized that the last hand that had touched it was that of her parent. She placed the jar on her dressing-room table, and before going on stage, she dipped her finger in the cold cream. Ever since, before every performance, she touches the jar for luck and for memory.
"Speaking about her acting, she said, 'The actual process is exactly the same for me whether it is Sophocles, Euripides, Beckett or Shakespeare. Once I've found the core, I've just got to put my foot through a fourth emotional wall.' Naturally, Beckett confronts her with a particular challenge.'''Whenever I work with him,'' she said, ''I feel as if I'm being blasted off into outer space.'"
