The picturesque village of Méricourt stands high above a great loop of the River Seine, an hour north-east of Paris and a short distance from Claude Monet’s house and gardens at Giverny. It is the home base of Gare St Lazare Ireland, an internationally acclaimed Irish theatre company, run by actor Conor Lovett and director Judy Hegarty Lovett.
Following the example of Samuel Beckett, whose works form the cornerstone of their extensive touring programme, the couple, who have known each other since their teenage years in Cork, relocated to France at the turn of the millennium. In the intervening years, they have not only raised three children but also built up a repertoire of twenty Beckett titles, together with plays by Michael Harding and Will Eno.
They are about to embark on an exciting new project, which will be formally launched at the Irish Embassy in Paris later this week, attended by Edward Beckett, the writer’s nephew and executor of the Beckett Estate. The event will feature performances and readings from Beckett’s works by Lovett, Adrian Dunbar, ondes Martinot player Nathalie Forget and Ciarán Hinds, who has also lived in Paris for many years and, with Edward Beckett, is the Atelier’s co-patron.
Atelier Samuel Beckett is an artist-led residency, occupying a beautifully renovated old house, a few steps downhill from their own home. In the golden light of an autumn evening, the Seine threads a silvery course through thickly wooded hillsides and chalk ravines. The two houses face south, looking directly into the same magnificent panorama, geographically and creatively sharing the same outlook.
Artists of all disciplines will be offered the opportunity to spend time in this rural idyll in order to reflect on, research and develop projects. They will have full access to the house’s extensive reference library and can also avail of one-on-one mentoring sessions with these two leading exponents of Beckett’s work. As this writer can attest, both partners are naturally generous in sharing their expertise with other theatre-makers, as well as encouraging young artists.
Hegarty Lovett explains that the story behind the Atelier is an intensely personal one, mirroring the couple’s own experiences:
“Conor and I came to this village in France in 2000. We were very fortunate to have been offered a beautiful home to stay in by a lovely American couple, who remain close friends. During that time, we built a body of work that still sustains us to this day, that we still tour internationally and are very proud of. Méricourt provided us with that opportunity.
“When we received a transformative gift from other American donors, we said we would like to give back what we had been so happy to receive all those years ago – the gift of time and space to create work. The Atelier exists to do just that”.
Lovett takes up the story:
“It all came together at the right time and for the right reasons. These people had seen our work on tour. They’d even travelled from the States for performances. They liked what we did and said they’d be keen to get behind it. They subsequently put in place some funding, which would come down to the company annually over a period of several years. It was an amazing gift because it enabled us to plan ahead, and provided some stability, which we had never experienced before.
“They were offering separate support for our idea of an artists’ residency, just at the time that the house in front of us came up for sale. Our donors made it possible for us to acquire the house and renovate it. So there was a crazy but very beautiful synchronicity about it all.”
The Atelier is, to the best of the couple’s knowledge, the first of its kind in France, as a dedicated space in a solid building, under the name of Samuel Beckett. Their ultimate ambition is to see it become a centre of excellence for Beckett studies and practice. The idea seems entirely appropriate, given the echoes between their own life path and that of the man whose artistic vision guides their work.
“Beckett had a second home in Ussy-sur-Marne outside Paris, a village not dissimilar to this”, says Lovett. “That’s where he did his writing.
“The Atelier is very much an evolution, a progression out of Gare St. Lazare’s work. Over the years, many collaborators, artists and academics have come to Mericourt to visit us, to work with us, to interview Judy, find out about our work, attend rehearsals and workshops … that sort of thing. So this is a formalising of all that, in a very fortuitous kind of a way. It has Gare St Lazare Ireland written all over it”.
The company is keen to invite applications from international artists working in a variety of creative disciplines. Galway Culture Company, in partnership with the University of Galway and Gare St Lazare Ireland, is supporting the first two bursaries, one for a Galway county artist and one for a Galway city artist. The recipients are Petal Pilley, artistic director of Blue Teapot Theatre Company, which specialises in working with actors with intellectual disabilities, and Galway-based writer and poet Claire-Louise Bennett.
“We don’t expect anyone to deliver anything at the end of the three-week residency, so there’s no presentational value to this. It really is about artists spending time on their work”, says Hegarty Lovett. “But we do hope that they will surround themselves or engage on some level with Beckett’s writing during their time here.
“We’re interested in promoting Beckett’s legacy across the art forms. I am from a visual arts background and trained at the Crawford College of Art. I approach Beckett through a visual lens. It’s interesting to us that many people who engage with Beckett’s writing have come from a background in the visual arts or music or dance, finding their way into the theatre through different disciplines. But it’s not surprising as his work is very visual, very musical and contains a lot of movement – or stillness or restriction”.
As well as getting the Atelier up and running, Gare St Lazare Ireland is focused on two major performance projects for 2024.
A multi-faceted collaboration of writings by Beckett, Dante, Hermann Melville and the 11th century German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, mystic and visionary Hildegard von Bingen will integrate music by Dublin-based composer Benedict Schlepper-Connolly and singer Michelle O’Rourke. Its premiere is scheduled for autumn 2024.
“The important thing about this and previous works like Here All Night and How It Is, which we worked on over an eight-year period, is that we have expanded way beyond the solo performance and into much bigger collaborations, combining Beckett’s writing with significant amounts of music and singing”, says Hegarty Lovett.
In May, rehearsals begin on Three Catastrophic Plays. The trio comprises Catastrophe, written by Beckett for former Czech president Vaclav Havel during the latter’s imprisonment; Mistake, Havel’s response to Catastrophe, written after his release from prison; and Muzzled by Iranian playwright Reza Shirmarz. Index on Censorship, an international organisation which campaigns for freedom of expression, and Art for Human Rights approached Gare St Lazare Ireland with a request to produce all three plays. The former organisation commissioned Shirmarz to write Muzzled in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Catastrophe. The three will tour together in June and July 2024, visiting Prague, Paris, London, Los Angeles, New York and, hopefully, Avignon, where Catastrophe premiered in1982.
“It’s quite daunting, very exciting but a wonderful opportunity for us,” says Hegarty Lovett. “In the case of Muzzled, which has not been produced before, it will be the first time that we have engaged with writers at risk”.
The couple warmly acknowledge the backing of Culture Ireland, the government body which supports Irish artists travelling abroad and has enabled them to build up a global following for their work.
“It’s because of the consistent touring, year in year out, that you build relationships and a wider audience”, says Hegarty Lovett. “It’s a brilliant return gift to Ireland to be bringing the voice and culture of Ireland into other countries. Beckett has international reach and name recognition. People all over the world know him and travel to see his works. He’s right up there with Picasso and Beethoven. And he brings in audiences from far and wide to Ireland, which is very much what Gare St Lazare Ireland is all about.”
Atelier Samuel Beckett: ateliersamuelbeckett@gmail.com
https://garestlazareireland.com
This article was first published in The Irish Times on 20 November 2023.
The Even Hand 