The Beckett Trio
Capturing the oppressive nature of memory and human consciousness
Over the course of the brief piece, Ingvarsson is hidden behind a dark wall, with an aperture revealing her frenetically moving mouth. It’s a tour de force by the actress, who generates welcome bursts of humor with her squawks and scoffs, even as her agitated speech evokes a disquieting vision of awareness.
Nanna Ingvarsson commands the stage in Scena Theatre’s "The Beckett Trio”
The Washington Post
March 21, 2018, by Celia Wren
Who needs such accoutrements as a torso, limbs, eyes and ears? To capture the oppressive nature of memory and human consciousness, actress Nanna Ingvarsson needs just her mouth. Ingvarsson is the only visible figure in “The Beckett Trio,” an aptly intense showcase of three bleak, minimalist Samuel Beckett playlets directed by Robert McNamara for Scena Theatre.
Over the course of the brief piece, Ingvarsson is hidden behind a dark wall, with an aperture revealing her frenetically moving mouth. It’s a tour de force by the actress, who generates welcome bursts of humor with her squawks and scoffs, even as her agitated speech evokes a disquieting vision of awareness.
Nanna Ingvarsson commands the stage in Scena Theatre’s "The Beckett Trio”
DC Metro Theatre Arts
March 21, 2018, By John Stoltenberg
Two-time Helen Hayes Award winner Ingvarsson has secured a reputation as one of the best actors in town, but were she still casting about for a calling in life, deciphering the distilled texts of Beckett would be a mission with her name on it.
Nanna Ingvarsson is so phenomenal in these three harrowing short plays by Samuel Beckett that one can easily imagine the Nobel Prize-winning minimalist notoriously persnickety about his stage directions rising from the grave (center stage, a six-by-two rectangular hole, in nearly no light) and exclaiming (in a hoarse whisper): Yes, yes, that’s precisely what I meant. And then (brushing dust from his cadaverous face): If only I were still alive, I could write another playlet for her.(Whereupon, woebegone, he slowly disappears into the hole. Ten-second pause. Fade to black.)
Two-time Helen Hayes Award winner Ingvarsson has secured a reputation as one of the best actors in town, but were she still casting about for a calling in life, deciphering the distilled texts of Beckett would be a mission with her name on it.
Mouth’s monologue goes on like that for nearly eight pages, and I could not help wondering during this epic logorrhea, How in the world did Ingvarsson learn it? And how in the world did she then make it so piteous and hilarious at the same time?