Ed Fringe 2010: First Love – Pleasance Courtyard
Writer: Samuel Beckett
Director: Judy Hegarty Lovett
Reviewer: Val Baskott
The Public Reviews Rating: 
Gare St Lazare Players Ireland are building a strong reputation for their Beckett interpretations. This performance of Beckett’s uncut short novel First Love, written in French in 1946, but only translated by Beckett into English in 1973 is no exception.
A man is reflecting on his younger self’s amorous adventure. Homeless and sleeping rough after his father’s death, an encounter with a prostitute at his regular sleeping place develops into a sort of love affair. He lets her take him in to her two rooms, co-habits in a reclusive exploitative way while she continues her business and finally deserts her for the solitude of the mountains as she is giving birth, perhaps to his child.
Conor Lovett’s performance and Judy Hegarty Lovett’s direction do admirable justice to this darkly funny and disquieting work. A solitary figure dimly lit perches on the stone stairs of the venue, subtly evoking an urban wasteland. There is no set as such overtly placed, merely a glimpse of sets stored back stage, a marble column and stacked sofas alluding to graveyards and domestic clutter later referred to in the text.
The rest hangs on the words themselves and Lovett’s telling enactment of the Narrator.
Lovett’s timing and delivery at first seem hesitant, but successfully define the reclusive persona of a socially dysfunctional man, always pre-occupied with understanding himself. Bitter humour is understated and all the funnier, crude language underpins the mutual exploitation in the relationship, and though at times the narrative seems over long and laboured it is a fault of the complete text, not the performer.
Runs until 25 August. Not 11th,18th
Tags: Beckett, Conor Lovett, Edinburgh Fringe 2010, Gare St Lazare Players Ireland, Judy Hegarty Lovett, The Pleasance
11:59 pm on August 9th, 2010
This is a stunning solo performance. Coaxes the (very) dark humour out of an early Beckett novella. It will certaily linger with you long after you have left the theatre.