After the sell out season of the Australian Premiere of Samuel Beckett's Worstward Ho, Richard Murphet and Robert Meldrum return with another boundary pushing work that weaves together six late-prose pieces.
STILL: LATE WORKS BY SAMUEL BECKETT
10 - 26 JULY, 2025
THEATRE WORKS: EXPLOSIVES FACTORY
WRITTEN BY SAMUEL BECKETT
DIRECTED BY RICHARD MURPHET
PERFORMED BY ROBERT MELDRUM
about
Victorian Theatre Company presents Still: Late Works by Samuel Beckett, the latest artistic collaboration between Melbourne theatre greats Richard Murphet and Robert Meldrum.
After the sell-out season of Worstward Ho (Australian Premiere), powerhouse duo Richard Murphet and Robert Meldrum return with a new dramatisation of rarely presented Beckett texts; six short works written towards the end of his life.
‘A man alone in a hut, in the valley, on the backroads, somewhere between the town and the outback, between the sky and the dazzling land. Six short, unpredictable episodes on his journey along the blurred boundary between day and night, between living and dying, out of a conscious life into that threshold, alternately terrifying, revelatory, awesome, prior to the final shutdown. These are joyously, shockingly real vignettes, filled not with philosophical thought on Life or Death, but on the mere ordinariness of existence: a table, a wicker chair, a window, a beech tree, an old hat, the sound of nightingales, a handful of yellow flowers. It has been our delight over the past 12 months to find ways of bringing them alive for a modern audience.’ - Richard Murphet & Robert Meldrum.
These pieces attempt to present the experience of dying - not traumatically, but carefully and irreversibly.
The chance to experience these rare Beckett pieces live on stage is a must for Beckett and theatre lovers alike.
"Robert Meldrum's performance is a masterclass"
it's on the house
"Achingly beautiful... A masterclass in voice and movement"
tim byrne
"What Murphet and Meldrum have achieved here is something magical"
stage whispers
"Still is a beautifully designed and executed work by two legends of Australian theatre. It is rich in its stage craft and astonishing in execution. It is a theatrical gem."
theatre first
"Meldrum brings a quiet humour and authority to the text that works seamlessly with Beckett’s absurdist charm."
the dialog
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Thursday 10th July, 7:30pm (Preview)
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Friday 11th July, 7:30pm (Preview)
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Saturday 12th July, 7:30pm (Opening Night)
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Tuesday 15th July, 7:30pm
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Wednesday 16th July, 7:30pm (Q&A Post Show)
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Thursday 17th July, 7:30pm
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Friday 18th July, 7:30pm
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Saturday 19th July, 7:30pm
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Tuesday 22nd July, 7:30pm
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Wednesday 23rd July, 7:30pm
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Thursday 24th July, 7:30pm
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Friday 25th July, 7:30pm
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Saturday 26th July, 7:30pm
Venue:
Explosives Factory
Rear Laneway 67 Inkerman St. ST KILDA 3182
Full $48.00
Concession $38.00
Mobtix $25
Preview $28
Prices:
Show Duration:
50 mins
Writer/ Samuel Beckett
Director/ Richard Murphet
Actor/ Robert Meldrum
Stage Manager/ Kara Floyd
Set Design Consultant/ Jenny Kemp
Producer/ Matthew Connell
Poster Photography & Design/ Joe Hill
Set Artwork/ Gary Willis
Builder/ Mark Hennessy
Building assistance/ Tony Reck
Production Photos/ Darren Gill
After we presented Worstward Ho at the Explosives Factory in 2023, we wanted to continue to work on the fascinating puzzle presented by Samuel Beckett’s late prose. We read through all the works from his last 20 years and finally chose 6 short pieces for our focus. Three of them were connected by the use of the word ‘Still’ in their titles: Fizzle Still, Variations on a Still Point (which comprises 2 works: Still 3 and Sounds) and Stirrings Still. We added two other that felt like they completed the suite: Heard in the Dark and One Evening. As far as we know, these were not written with each other consciously in mind. But to our amazement, they seem to echo, reflect upon and develop words, phrases and themes throughout.
At a time when daily news is so full of the death-dealing cruelty, violence and hypocrisy of the human race, it has been our joy to return each rehearsal to the deep humane-ness of Beckett’s sensibility. This may seem a paradox, given his reputation for gloomy melancholy and mordant, morbid wit - a reputation gained because of his refusal to gild the harsh realities of living with false sentimentality. He is in fact the most caring, most positive of writers. And the most precise. His later texts are so spare and minimal because there is not a word wasted, or misused. He rescues language from the shattering and cheapening it has received from the corruption of politics and the mass media. These six works present with care and a limitless depth of understanding the experiences of an ordinary man, alone in his thoughts and actions at a critical juncture in his life.
We have attempted to render these experiences with the care and clarity with which he writes them. It has been our delight. We hope it will be yours.
With great thanks to the following, without whose generosity this production could not have happened.
Greg Carroll, Gary Willis, Mark Hennesy, Tony Reck, The National Theatre School, South Melbourne Uniting Church, Robert Draffin, Theatre Works, and all the designers and assistants mentioned above, as well as so many others who volunteered their labour.
