So often romanticised in literature for its ability to heal and reaffirm, the sea and its tidal cosseting offers the author an instinctive setting for desperate escapes and new beginnings. Two former Booker winners pay homage in their titles: John Banville’s 2001 masterpiece The Sea and the 1978 winning novel by Iris Murdoch, who was so impressed she named it twice. Irish theatre is equally preoccupied with this force of nature, from the relentless backdrop of Synge’s Riders to Ellida’s longing in Frank McGuinness’s Ibsen adaptation The Lady from the Sea. Life-saver, life-taker, the sea is used time and again to shift a character towards one path or another.

In his 1957 radio play Embers, Samuel Beckett takes things to another level. Protagonist Henry is so traumatised by the sound of the sea, by the memories it evokes, he talks incessantly to himself in a bid to drown it out. Unable to drag himself away from that which torments him, not even after a trip to landlocked Switzerland, Henry sacrifices marriage and family for his obsession, caught up in memory or hallucination, surviving only by instruction: “On …. On.”

The sea has clearly infiltrated Pan-Pan’s excellent production of Embers, currently at the Samuel Beckett Theatre in Trinity College, from the framing device of actors crunching over ten tonnes worth of stones at the beginning, to the discordant sound effects throughout. The sea blares from 592 mini speakers – part set design, part art-installation – hung up on stage in mesmerising lines of polycarbonate strips that glisten like shingle under Aedín Cosgrave’s clever lighting. Sound designer Jimmy Eadie’s semi-sadistic use of volume unsettles, the command of ‘Hooves’ from Henry (Andrew Bennett) inspiring dread while physically assaulting the senses.

Inside a giant skull for the majority of the play – almost in keeping with Beckett’s wish that Embers never be performed by actors on a stage – Bennett’s voice engages the audience, switching effortlessly from horror to humour: “It was not enough to drag her into the world,” he says of his only daughter Addie, “now she must play the piano.” Áine Ní Mhuirí brings a haunting quality to Ada, Henry’s shadowy wife who may or may not be dead. The lull of her voice treads the line between real and imaginary as Ada wonders out loud: “Is this rubbish a help to you, Henry?

Under Gavin Quinn’s directorship, both actors can be partially seen from various angles and degrees of light through the eyes of the skull, itself an obvious nod to the theme of death. Its crenelated appearance works also as a reminder of the play as radio drama, the actors obscured by grids.

Andrew Clancy’s massive skull is a work of art in its own right, the textured layers intended to represent the many facets of Beckett’s script. A post-show discussion moderated by Nicholas Johnson, deputy director of the Samuel Beckett Summer School, was interesting, with Quinn, Cosgrave, Bennett and Clancy giving their views on the creative process behind the production. From the ‘ten-ton mammoth’ coincidence of the stones, to the fact that the skull will be broken down into sixteen parts and then reassembled later this month for the Edinburgh International Festival, the team’s insights into their take on Beckett’s ‘difficult’ radio play delighted. Comprised of well-known actors, Trinity academics and members of the Samuel Beckett Summer School, this was no ordinary audience and the questions, at times well-meaning interrogations, reflected this. Quinn answered the queries admirably, ably justifying his decision to end the play in silence, as well as tackling the more esoteric questions (why the long version of Chopin’s waltz?) with thoughtful reasoning that showed a deep knowledge of the source material.

He joked at the start of the talk that it’s taken Pan-Pan two decades of their 22 year existence to prepare for Beckett. Last night’s performance indicates it was worth the wait.

by Sarah Gilmartin

Pan Pan’s production of Embers by Samuel Beckett continues at the Beckett Theatre until Saturday, August 17th before moving to Edinburgh International Festival. Tickets are available here.

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Samuel Beckett

Gavin Quinn Director

Andrew Clancy Sculptor

Aedin Cosgrove Lighting designer

Jimmy Eadie Sound designer

Photographs by Ros Kavanagh