Theatre in Review: All That Fall (Jermyn Street Theatre/59E59)

	Michael Gambon and Eileen Atkins. Photo: Carol Rosegg

In All That Fall, Eileen Atkins is currently offering the best demonstration I've ever seen of the law of gravity. As Mrs. Rooney, the woebegone heroine of Samuel Beckett's All That Fall, her body is seemingly being pulled to earth by an irresistible force. The effect takes in her mouth, which is shaped into an inverted "u" of disapproval, and her eyes, in which the tiniest glint of hope is absent as they glance down at the dust to which we must all someday return. (The dowdy hat that rests on her head like a mockery of a crown adds to the overall look.) "Nice day for the races," comments one of Mrs. Rooney's neighbors. "But will it hold up?" she replies in a voice rich with intimations of doom. "Will it hold up?" In Atkins' reading, the question all but answers itself.

The action of All That Fall follows Mrs. Rooney as she slowly trudges toward her suburban train station, where she plans to meet up with her blind husband, Dan. The embodiment of Beckett's gimlet-eyed view of his fellow Irishmen, she is a comic prophetess of doom, thoroughly inured to the disappointments of the material world. Along the way, Mrs. Rooney encounters various members of the community, each of which Atkins, with her superbly timed line readings, turns into an occasion for hilarity. "It is a blessed thing to be alive in such weather, and out of hospital," says an acquaintance, Mr. Tyler. "Alive?" says Mrs. Rooney, in a mixture of stunned surprise and stern disapproval. "Well, half alive, shall we say?" he replies. "Speak for yourself, Mr. Tyler," she responds. "I am not half alive nor anything approaching it."

The local clerk of the court drives by ("crucifying the gearbox") and offers her a ride, but getting Mrs. Rooney's aged, arthritic body into the car is an exercise in comic agony. Once in the vehicle, she offers a running commentary on her driver's shortcomings, leading to her own special brand of metaphysical speculation: "Mind the hen! Oh mother, you have squashed her, drive on, drive on! One minute picking happy at the dung, on the road, in the sun, with now and then a dust bath, and then -- bang! -- all her troubles are over. All the laying and the hatching. Just one great squawk and then ... peace."

"Have you no respect for misery?" snaps Mrs. Rooney at an unfeeling neighbor and, in truth, we don't, as long as the misery is as delectably funny as this. The laughter continues at the train station, where Mrs. Rooney, making conversation with the stationmaster, recalls his father as "a small, ferrety, purple-faced widower, deaf as a doornail, very testy and snappy." Even better is her encounter with the pious Miss Fitt, who, she explains, is so devoted to God that in church she becomes unaware of the presence of anyone else. Even after the service, she adds, "I stumble in a kind of daze, you might say, oblivious to my co-religionists." In an excellent supporting cast, Catherine Cusack stands out as Miss Fitt, staring past Mrs. Rooney into the middle distance, as if she expects to see an appearance of the Deity at any moment.

According to James Knowlson, Beckett's authorized biographer, many of the details of All That Fall were taken from his childhood in Foxrock, a Dublin suburb; in the early passages of the play, Beckett transmutes these details into the driest possible comedy, expertly savaging the combination of depression and piety that, in the playwright's estimation, was the hallmark of middle-class Irish life. For those who have long-ago decided that Beckett is nothing more than a purveyor of existential gloom, All That Fall will prove to be something of a happy shock.

The atmosphere changes significantly, however, when the train is late without explanation, a turn of events that causes a low-grade anxiety to spread like a virus. The appearance of blind Mr. Rooney exacerbates this, although Michael Gambon has a great deal of fun with the character's lurching stride and penny-pinching ways. Still, the actor's booming delivery adds a sepulchral note, especially when commenting on his infirmity. ("I have been up and down these steps five thousand times and still I don't know how many there are"). This initial drop in the temperature becomes a sharp blast of cold air when we finally learn why the train was so late.

Running only 75 minutes, All That Fall moves by degrees from droll Irish comedy to intimations of the grave and a sorrow beyond rational explanation. (The title is taken from the 145th Psalm, "The Lord upholdeth all that fall and raiseth up all those that be bowed down," words that couldn't be more ironic in this context.) It is both one of Beckett's most accessible works and one of the most affecting. In any case, it would be a sin to miss these two authoritative performances under the expert guidance of the director, Trevor Nunn. Rarely, if ever, have I heard Beckett's language delivered with such surgical precision.

Beckett wrote All That Fall as a radio play and insisted that it was not suited to the stage. (He nevertheless authorized several productions.) Nunn's staging honors the script's original intentions; in Cherry Truluck's set design, an array of old-fashioned (and nonworking) radio mics are suspended over the stage. The actors, who are seated at stage right and stage left when not required for a scene, are in costume (also by Truluck), but they carry scripts as they would do in a radio station. The many sound effects called for in the script are brilliantly delivered by the sound designer, Paul Groothuis; they range from a symphonic display of animal sounds at the opening to passing vehicles, gusts of winds, and a train whistle. Especially effective is the sound of Mrs. Rooney's feet trudging in the dirt; it conjures the sound of shovels digging a grave. Phil Hewitt's lighting design is understated and thoroughly professional.

The last lines of All That Fall almost mock us for the enjoyment we have had earlier; it is only when the play is over that we realize how expertly we have been brought to this point. Beckett always thought that All That Fall didn't work on the stage. Perhaps if he had seen this stunning production, he might have felt otherwise.--David Barbour