ALL that could be seen was her mouth. A mouth that opened and closed convulsively, clenching its teeth, flickering its tongue, like some glutinous, repulsive sexual object. Out of it came a stream of wild, jumbled reminiscences, faster and faster:a voice she did not recognise…at first…so long since it had sounded…then finally had to admit…could be none other…than her own…certain vowel sounds...she had never heard…elsewhere…so that people would stare…and now this stream…not catching the half of it…not the quarter…no idea…what she was saying…imagine!…no idea what she was saying!This part, almost the only part, which Billie Whitelaw played in Samuel Beckett’s “Not I” at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 1973 and 1975, was called, appropriately, Mouth. It was the hardest thing she ever did in her career in stage, TV and film: a 17-minute monologue, masked and in a head-brace, after weeks of word-learning so intense that she thought she was losing her mind. The public at large remembered her for her role as Mrs Baylock, the green-eyed, prim-white-collared Nanny from Hell in “The Omen”. That, she said, was just a laugh. The highest accolade she ever received was not...
from The Economist: Obituary http://www.economist.com/news/obituary/21637345-billie-whitelaw-actress-and-muse-samuel-beckett-died-december-21staged-82-her-masters?fsrc=rss%7Cobi
No comments:
Post a Comment