Paul Fulcher's Reviews > The Performance
The Performance
by
by
When Summer is sitting in the audience like this, she often wishes she could get into the heads of the people around her. She wonders if they are taking any notice of the play, or if they are sitting here having irrelevant tangential thoughts, or if they are bursting to go to the loo, hanging on till intermission.
The Performance is a formally innovative novel based around Samuel Beckett's Happy Days.
Three women - a lecturer in literature nearing retirement, a middle-aged philanthropist and a young usher - watch Beckett's play, which triggers thoughts of their own lives and concerns. Cleverly the novel is structured in three parts, the first and last reflecting the two Acts of the play, told in alternating close third-person perspective of each of the women, but with an Intermission, reflecting the break of the play, told in the form of a playscript, where the three women meet each other.
The book neatly links the themes of the play, and the words of Winnie, to the back stories of the characters. Thomas has said (https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
And Thomas does the same with her meta-concerns, notably, and not surprisingly for a novel written in 2020 Australia, climate change in general, and the climate-change triggered bushfires in particular:
the false cold of the theatre makes it hard to imagine the heavy wind outside in the real world, the ash air pressing onto the city from the nearby hills where bushfires are taking hold.
It is a fascinating re-read of Beckett's play which certain focuses on heat and even fire, as Winnie tells us in the play:
With the sun blazing so much fiercer down, and hourly fiercer, is it not natural things should go on fire never known to do so, in this way I mean, spontaneous like.
Although Beckett's novel was written 60 years ago, and Thomas account omits some of Winnie's other thoughts. On reflection, having complained about the heat, Winnie ultimately decides It is no hotter today than yesterday, it will be no hotter tomorrow than today, how could it, and so on back into the far past, forward into the far future, and in any case, when reflecting on the heat she tells herself:
The heat is much greater.
The perspiration much less.
That is what I find so wonderful.
The way man adapts himself.
To changing conditions.
My one small reservation about the novel is that I found the strongest section those that referred more directly to Happy Days than to Thomas's characters' own stories.
And I would strongly recommend watching Beckett's wonderful play in conjunction with the novel. I was fortunate enough to be able to see the 60th anniversary production directed by Trevor Nunn and starring Lisa Dwan as Winnie and it added a lot to my interpretation, including those elements that Thomas has deliberately, and justifiably given the novel is about how people interpret plays rather than about Happy Days itself, omitted.
A strong 4 stars and one I hope to see on the Booker shortlist
The Performance is a formally innovative novel based around Samuel Beckett's Happy Days.
Three women - a lecturer in literature nearing retirement, a middle-aged philanthropist and a young usher - watch Beckett's play, which triggers thoughts of their own lives and concerns. Cleverly the novel is structured in three parts, the first and last reflecting the two Acts of the play, told in alternating close third-person perspective of each of the women, but with an Intermission, reflecting the break of the play, told in the form of a playscript, where the three women meet each other.
The book neatly links the themes of the play, and the words of Winnie, to the back stories of the characters. Thomas has said (https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
The play’s formal austerity offered my novel a useful structural device to contain the swirling thoughts I wanted for my characters. The range of subjects covered by Winnie also allowed me to extract whatever words most resonated for my women, triggering their thoughts and memories.
And Thomas does the same with her meta-concerns, notably, and not surprisingly for a novel written in 2020 Australia, climate change in general, and the climate-change triggered bushfires in particular:
the false cold of the theatre makes it hard to imagine the heavy wind outside in the real world, the ash air pressing onto the city from the nearby hills where bushfires are taking hold.
It is a fascinating re-read of Beckett's play which certain focuses on heat and even fire, as Winnie tells us in the play:
With the sun blazing so much fiercer down, and hourly fiercer, is it not natural things should go on fire never known to do so, in this way I mean, spontaneous like.
Although Beckett's novel was written 60 years ago, and Thomas account omits some of Winnie's other thoughts. On reflection, having complained about the heat, Winnie ultimately decides It is no hotter today than yesterday, it will be no hotter tomorrow than today, how could it, and so on back into the far past, forward into the far future, and in any case, when reflecting on the heat she tells herself:
The heat is much greater.
The perspiration much less.
That is what I find so wonderful.
The way man adapts himself.
To changing conditions.
My one small reservation about the novel is that I found the strongest section those that referred more directly to Happy Days than to Thomas's characters' own stories.
And I would strongly recommend watching Beckett's wonderful play in conjunction with the novel. I was fortunate enough to be able to see the 60th anniversary production directed by Trevor Nunn and starring Lisa Dwan as Winnie and it added a lot to my interpretation, including those elements that Thomas has deliberately, and justifiably given the novel is about how people interpret plays rather than about Happy Days itself, omitted.
A strong 4 stars and one I hope to see on the Booker shortlist
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Reading Progress
July 16, 2021
– Shelved as:
to-buy-when-no-tbr
July 16, 2021
– Shelved
July 17, 2021
– Shelved as:
awaiting
July 23, 2021
– Shelved as:
to-read
July 24, 2021
–
Started Reading
July 25, 2021
– Shelved as:
2021
July 25, 2021
–
Finished Reading