Nat K's Reviews > The Performance
The Performance
by
by
”Wait for the day to come…the happy day to come when flesh melts at so many degrees.”
It’s interesting that this is a story within a story, so to speak. While Samuel Beckett’s play Happy Days is being performed onstage, we’re led into the musings of three women who are in the audience. Two are theatre patrons, the other an usher at the theatre. Of different age groups and backgrounds, as the play unfolds, we are given a glimpse into each of their lives.
It’s so true in that the darkness of a cinema or a theatre, we have those moments completely to ourselves, to mull over things. While watching a movie or attending a play, we can allow our thoughts to wonder off.
”How gratifying it is to wallow in one’s thoughts. It’s worth keeping up the subscription for this alone, this quiet pleasure of being compelled to sit in a theatre for a couple of hours a few times each year, uninterrupted and contained.”
Set in a hot Melbourne summer, with stifling heat and the smell of bushfires burning in the background, we attend the production of Happy Days, alongside our three protagonists, Margo, Summer and Ivy.
From the opening scene where Margo is trying to carefully arrive at her seat without treading on anybody’s toes, I was totally immersed in this book. The sweat drying on her at the rapid change in temperature from extreme heat outdoors to frigid frostiness, almost freezer like conditions of the theatre. I could smell the change of atmosphere. The polite ”excuse me” to strangers, while balancing a handbag so as not to hit anybody in the small aisle space. The relief at getting to your seat. The stranger to one side hogging the shared arm rest. Hearing another patron snoring in the audience. Having the cough that just has to happen in a quiet theatre. It was all so incredibly real. Been there, done that.
”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.”
The story unfolds via alternating chapter per protagonist.
Margo: late 60s? early 70s?, is a Professor of Literature who is being gently “prodded” by others in her faculty to perhaps consider retirement, so that younger academics can be given an opportunity to build their careers. Happily – well, comfortably – married, she ponders on her life. If the aggression her husband has recently started to display towards her is in fact a result of his deteriorating health (with early signs of dementia), or is it something he’d kept hidden, that he'd always secretly wanted to hit her before but had suppressed the desire? And why does her grown son treat her with such disdain? Is it because she's still working and not ecstatic to be a Grandma? While sitting in the play, she replays pivotal moments of both her personal and academic life. All the highs and lows and in-betweens.
"The people I knew who were dreary at twenty are just drearier at seventy. The dynamic young people are now dynamic old people. Why isn't that more widely understood?"
Summer: Aptly named. Early 20s. An usher in the theatre. A drama student. A newcomer to the big city, with big dreams. She's moved from Perth to Melbourne. She worries why she doesn’t know who her father was and would it offend her mother to want to find out. She is of mixed race. She worries about fitting in. Being in the right crowd. This feeds her anxiety. She worries about climate change. She worries about the planet. Hate speeches in parliament, bollards on city streets, the potential for a bomb threat at a concert, urban life is making her uncomfortable. She worries about her girlfriend’s safety, as she tries to protect her parent’s property which is near where the bushfires are raging. She worries about worrying.
"Summer wishes that she were more even-tempered. She wishes she noticed less and worried less and cared less."
Ivy: Former lit. graduate, passionate Beckett fan. Early 40s. She's come into money by a fluke of fate, and is now using those funds towards the arts and creative pursuits that have meaning to her. Philanthropy doesn't sit comfortably. The lunches, the dinners, the schmoozing. With a young family, her supposed good fortune doesn't reveal a tragedy which she's never healed from.
"Ivy is uncomfortable with the way wealth generates wealth, abundance delivers abundance. She is uncomfortable with that fundamental truth. She is uncomfortable with that particular truth."
The play progresses while the bushfires rage.
”Perhaps they are immune to what is going on outside this cold bubble of culture. Maybe they already felt safe in their city of their suburbs, buffered from the threat of the distant, unpredictable flames.”
I found it wonderful that this book is set around what’s occurring on the stage with the performance of Happy Days, that certain lines of the play made it into the story as markers of something important. I saw this play many, many years ago and it was excruciating. People left the play during the first act mid performance (which is exceptionally rude). I had the grace to wait until interval and not return. It’s such a shame, as the amazing Ruth Cracknell was playing the role of Winnie. As the play progressed, her character (who was stuck in a sand mound of some sort), became more and more embedded in it. Until she was up to her neck in sand. Again, it was excruciating to watch. I’m not a fan of Beckett and cannot pretend to understand what the messages are in his plays. He relies heavily on metaphors. I’ve now seen three of them, purely because the wealth of talent in the Oz theatre scene is so rich, it’s worthwhile going. Even though I leave none the wiser.
I had to laugh when one of the characters, Margo, mentions not having seen the play to its conclusion the first time she saw it years previously. I understood completely.
As Ivy muses while watching the play unfold ”What was SB getting at with that? She's never been sure.” I concur.
So to have the play tied in with our three characters is, to me, sheer genius. For all the metaphors, it shows that life can be as absurd and inert and suffocating as the play being performed. That we’re all captives of our own thoughts, and often held to ransom by them.
And that assumptions are just that. We have no idea what's going on in someone else's head, or what they're feeling. What's happening in their lives. We just assume to connect the dots. The exterior can be just that, simply a façade, hiding inner doubt and turmoil.
Naming this book The Performance is another piece of genius. Aren't we all performing, each and every day?
”Winnie too is gazing ahead with compressed lips. She is stoic. She is having a happy day. She is buried in the ground but she endures. Things could be worse. Apparently.”
Though I feel ambivalent towards Beckett's writing, it would definitely be helpful to have at least a basic understanding of what his play Happy Days is about. Otherwise the references to it and its part in this story will be lost on you.
While reading this I couldn't help but think of Charlotte Wood's The Weekend. Another book that reaches into the female psyche and examines female friendships. Ah, these amazing Aussie writers!
”The play is nearing completion.”
This is such a brilliant book, I enjoyed it completely. The writing is crisp and I had so many "ah-ha" moments as I identified with something the characters felt or thought. I can easily imagine this making it onto the small screen, as it has that type of vibe to it. And just like when reading The Weekend, I couldn't help but wonder which of the characters I felt most empathy towards. Who I felt most drawn to. This was our Bookclub pick, and I have a feeling that it’s going to lead to all sorts of wonderful discussions.
”Heart doubts. Waverings. Confusions….is it a confession, to express doubt? An accusation? It depends on who is listening.”
It’s interesting that this is a story within a story, so to speak. While Samuel Beckett’s play Happy Days is being performed onstage, we’re led into the musings of three women who are in the audience. Two are theatre patrons, the other an usher at the theatre. Of different age groups and backgrounds, as the play unfolds, we are given a glimpse into each of their lives.
It’s so true in that the darkness of a cinema or a theatre, we have those moments completely to ourselves, to mull over things. While watching a movie or attending a play, we can allow our thoughts to wonder off.
”How gratifying it is to wallow in one’s thoughts. It’s worth keeping up the subscription for this alone, this quiet pleasure of being compelled to sit in a theatre for a couple of hours a few times each year, uninterrupted and contained.”
Set in a hot Melbourne summer, with stifling heat and the smell of bushfires burning in the background, we attend the production of Happy Days, alongside our three protagonists, Margo, Summer and Ivy.
From the opening scene where Margo is trying to carefully arrive at her seat without treading on anybody’s toes, I was totally immersed in this book. The sweat drying on her at the rapid change in temperature from extreme heat outdoors to frigid frostiness, almost freezer like conditions of the theatre. I could smell the change of atmosphere. The polite ”excuse me” to strangers, while balancing a handbag so as not to hit anybody in the small aisle space. The relief at getting to your seat. The stranger to one side hogging the shared arm rest. Hearing another patron snoring in the audience. Having the cough that just has to happen in a quiet theatre. It was all so incredibly real. Been there, done that.
”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.”
The story unfolds via alternating chapter per protagonist.
Margo: late 60s? early 70s?, is a Professor of Literature who is being gently “prodded” by others in her faculty to perhaps consider retirement, so that younger academics can be given an opportunity to build their careers. Happily – well, comfortably – married, she ponders on her life. If the aggression her husband has recently started to display towards her is in fact a result of his deteriorating health (with early signs of dementia), or is it something he’d kept hidden, that he'd always secretly wanted to hit her before but had suppressed the desire? And why does her grown son treat her with such disdain? Is it because she's still working and not ecstatic to be a Grandma? While sitting in the play, she replays pivotal moments of both her personal and academic life. All the highs and lows and in-betweens.
"The people I knew who were dreary at twenty are just drearier at seventy. The dynamic young people are now dynamic old people. Why isn't that more widely understood?"
Summer: Aptly named. Early 20s. An usher in the theatre. A drama student. A newcomer to the big city, with big dreams. She's moved from Perth to Melbourne. She worries why she doesn’t know who her father was and would it offend her mother to want to find out. She is of mixed race. She worries about fitting in. Being in the right crowd. This feeds her anxiety. She worries about climate change. She worries about the planet. Hate speeches in parliament, bollards on city streets, the potential for a bomb threat at a concert, urban life is making her uncomfortable. She worries about her girlfriend’s safety, as she tries to protect her parent’s property which is near where the bushfires are raging. She worries about worrying.
"Summer wishes that she were more even-tempered. She wishes she noticed less and worried less and cared less."
Ivy: Former lit. graduate, passionate Beckett fan. Early 40s. She's come into money by a fluke of fate, and is now using those funds towards the arts and creative pursuits that have meaning to her. Philanthropy doesn't sit comfortably. The lunches, the dinners, the schmoozing. With a young family, her supposed good fortune doesn't reveal a tragedy which she's never healed from.
"Ivy is uncomfortable with the way wealth generates wealth, abundance delivers abundance. She is uncomfortable with that fundamental truth. She is uncomfortable with that particular truth."
The play progresses while the bushfires rage.
”Perhaps they are immune to what is going on outside this cold bubble of culture. Maybe they already felt safe in their city of their suburbs, buffered from the threat of the distant, unpredictable flames.”
I found it wonderful that this book is set around what’s occurring on the stage with the performance of Happy Days, that certain lines of the play made it into the story as markers of something important. I saw this play many, many years ago and it was excruciating. People left the play during the first act mid performance (which is exceptionally rude). I had the grace to wait until interval and not return. It’s such a shame, as the amazing Ruth Cracknell was playing the role of Winnie. As the play progressed, her character (who was stuck in a sand mound of some sort), became more and more embedded in it. Until she was up to her neck in sand. Again, it was excruciating to watch. I’m not a fan of Beckett and cannot pretend to understand what the messages are in his plays. He relies heavily on metaphors. I’ve now seen three of them, purely because the wealth of talent in the Oz theatre scene is so rich, it’s worthwhile going. Even though I leave none the wiser.
I had to laugh when one of the characters, Margo, mentions not having seen the play to its conclusion the first time she saw it years previously. I understood completely.
As Ivy muses while watching the play unfold ”What was SB getting at with that? She's never been sure.” I concur.
So to have the play tied in with our three characters is, to me, sheer genius. For all the metaphors, it shows that life can be as absurd and inert and suffocating as the play being performed. That we’re all captives of our own thoughts, and often held to ransom by them.
And that assumptions are just that. We have no idea what's going on in someone else's head, or what they're feeling. What's happening in their lives. We just assume to connect the dots. The exterior can be just that, simply a façade, hiding inner doubt and turmoil.
Naming this book The Performance is another piece of genius. Aren't we all performing, each and every day?
”Winnie too is gazing ahead with compressed lips. She is stoic. She is having a happy day. She is buried in the ground but she endures. Things could be worse. Apparently.”
Though I feel ambivalent towards Beckett's writing, it would definitely be helpful to have at least a basic understanding of what his play Happy Days is about. Otherwise the references to it and its part in this story will be lost on you.
While reading this I couldn't help but think of Charlotte Wood's The Weekend. Another book that reaches into the female psyche and examines female friendships. Ah, these amazing Aussie writers!
”The play is nearing completion.”
This is such a brilliant book, I enjoyed it completely. The writing is crisp and I had so many "ah-ha" moments as I identified with something the characters felt or thought. I can easily imagine this making it onto the small screen, as it has that type of vibe to it. And just like when reading The Weekend, I couldn't help but wonder which of the characters I felt most empathy towards. Who I felt most drawn to. This was our Bookclub pick, and I have a feeling that it’s going to lead to all sorts of wonderful discussions.
”Heart doubts. Waverings. Confusions….is it a confession, to express doubt? An accusation? It depends on who is listening.”
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Reading Progress
March 16, 2021
– Shelved
March 16, 2021
– Shelved as:
to-read
September 7, 2021
–
Started Reading
September 7, 2021
– Shelved as:
2021-books
September 7, 2021
– Shelved as:
aussie
September 7, 2021
– Shelved as:
bookclub-2021
September 7, 2021
– Shelved as:
contemporary
September 7, 2021
– Shelved as:
womens
September 11, 2021
–
Finished Reading
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Ron
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Sep 12, 2021 11:49AM
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I have to agree Elyse! So many great books from our neck of the woods. Lots of very talented Oz writers. I hope you get a chance to read this, I feel you'd appreciate the characters very much. Hugs gorgeous! 🧡🌸🌺
You know me too well Ron ;-) The opening scene made me miss going to the Theatre very, very much. Fingers crossed for next year. And yes, I did have a favourite character...
So true Marko! That's why the cinemas and Westfields are always packed with people in the middle of summer...they're there for the air con 🤗
Wonderful! Looking forward to hearing what you think Bianca.
Thanks Vanessa, it was fabulous. It appealed to me very much and I had no "lull" with reading it (which I've found has been happening too often lately).
Thank you kindly Neale-ski. I hope I've tempted you to read it? It's really something, and definitely a book that you'd appreciate.