Stumped – Bewleys Cafe Theatre – Review
by Frank L

STUMPED (Or Yes… No… Wait…) By Shomit Dutta
– July 24th – Aug 19th, 2023 At 1pm

​The action, or lack of it, takes place beside a cricket pavilion. It is a suitably-tired structure with its paint peeling, having seen better days. An errant clump of scutch grass can be seen protruding at its base. There is a cricketing scoreboard hanging on its clapboard side, along with two foldable canvas chairs. These chairs will be occupied by two mature cricketers; Beckett (Barry McGovern) and Pinter (Michael James Ford) who will be waiting to bat.

Shomit Dutta is “a playwright translator and teacher of Latin, Greek and ancient drama”. He is an ardent cricketer; a member of the Gaieties Cricket Club and was its captain during Harold Pinter’s final years. Samuel Beckett was a first-class cricketer in the nineteen twenties. In 2020 Dutta “found [himself], stuck in one place along with everyone else: finally the ideal opportunity for writing the play. The fact that Beckett and Pinter had also subjected their characters to enforced waiting in Godot and The Dumb Waiter created a conducive sense of mise en abyme”.  Dutta decided in Stumped to give the two of them “a dose of their own medicine”. The play brings into a quixotic whole the unlikely elements of the idiosyncracies and intricacies of cricket with the simplicities and complexities of the plays by Beckett and Pinter.

McGovern and Ford also play cricket. McGovern is one of the great interpreters of Beckett. They are perfect to play Beckett and Pinter as they wait to bat on some village green, deep in Gloucestershire. The dialogue is laced with literary references but Dutta has provided a fine sense of friendly contempt and rivalry between these two mature batsmen as they wait to bat. All the times the match is proceeding, Becket is keeping the score which in cricket is a ritual in itself. At times the dialogue nearly verges on the bawdy but Dutta is far too skilled to mine that genre. He keeps the text crackling along with some excellent insights into the esoteric rules of cricket and its language, not least the sub-title “Yes…No…Maybe”.  And of course, both Beckett and Pinter generate great moments of mirth. The play includes a physical scene change, a rare occurrence at Bewleys Cafe Theatre, which was carried out as elegantly as a fine drive through the covers. Following it, the mood and location changes, the match is over and Beckett and Pinter are waiting somewhere for their lift home. Dutta gives the two a dose of their own medicine.

Dutta has created a text which pays witty homage to cricket, Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett.  McGovern and Ford with their respective varieties of tone and pace of delivery combined with their confident timing draw you into this unlikely world. It’s as fine a piece of lunchtime theatre as we’ve been treated to in recent times. It runs until the 19th of August and comes highly recommended.

CAST AND CREW:
PERFORMED BY: Barry McGovern and Michael James Ford
DIRECTOR: Bairbre Ní Chaoimh
SET DESIGN: Martin Cahill
COSTUME DESIGN: Therèse McKeone
LIGHTING DESIGN: Colm Maher
SOUND DESIGN: Ewan Cowley
PHOTOGRAPHY: Johnny Speers