Beckett beckons: Broadway headliner Bill Irwin stages his take on the playwright in 'Texts for Nothing'

Bill Irwin has headlined in circus rings and Broadway theaters. He has charmed in blithe comedies by Molière and Noel Coward, and postmodern clowning displays of his own devising.

But ask the lean, agile, unfailingly gracious Irwin which playwright fuels his jets these days, and he's likely to name an author more associated with existential angst than knockabout hilarity: the late Irish dramatist of the absurd, Samuel Beckett.

Sporting a haircut that leaves him with just a few blond tufts on top of his head, Irwin opens his acclaimed one-man show "Texts for Nothing" at Seattle Repertory Theatre tonight. The 70-minute work, directed and performed by Irwin, is based on four short, semi-abstract prose pieces, written in the 1950s around the time Beckett penned his best-known play, "Waiting for Godot."

Irwin won raves in New York and San Francisco runs of the production, with critics praising his "hypnotic musicality" and the way he used his "rubbery body and elastic face" to embody and clarify Beckett's "mound of words."

"I think of 'Texts for Nothing' and 'Godot' as companion pieces, but very different," Irwin said last week. "I'm enthralled by how, in 'Texts,' Beckett riffs on consciousness and the various voices of the self. Each of us has an argument going inside our own head. And the way he captures that is very rich and full of resonance."

Wearing a dark shirt and sweat pants, Irwin, who is based in New York, looked right at home in his spartan Rep dressing room. One shelf held his clown gear: funny hats, silly spectacles. And on the floor sat a well-battered trunk.

But the clown props are for a private Rep reception, not "Texts for Nothing." In this show, Irwin wears an old suit and a weathered derby.

In 1996 at the Rep, Irwin played the hapless tramp Vladimir in "Waiting for Godot." But in Seattle, he's probably best known for premiering his postmodern Broadway romp "Largely New York" at the Rep, and his knockabout rendition of Molière's "Scapin."

Beckett makes an impression

But Irwin's fascination with Beckett predates even his clowning sprees. It began in college, when he read the play "Act Without Words."

"That affected me greatly because of the way Beckett described the physical actions of a play that has no dialogue," noted Irwin, who also trained at Ringling Brothers Clown College.

"Even when I was working in the Pickle Family Circus I'd make notes for myself in a very Beckettian way, like, 'He turns, ruminates, turns again.' "

In the mid-1980s, Irwin led a New York workshop of "Waiting for Godot" and admits (with characteristic humility), "I didn't get the play at all, but somehow it got to me."

When he heard in 1987 that famed director Mike Nichols was staging a Broadway "Godot" with comedy stars Robin Williams and Steve Martin, "I shamelessly dogged Nichols about playing the smaller role of Lucky. I'm not a big self-promoter, but finally he just said, 'OK, OK.' "

With help from mutual friends, Irwin also began to correspond with Beckett, a longtime resident of Paris.

The actor proudly carries around a sheaf of letters from the then-81-year-old playwright, written in a tiny, cramped hand — including a note agreeing to meet Irwin in France.

"He met people at this godawful, plastic hotel in Paris, near his home," Irwin recalled.

"I was very nervous. But in person he had that Bill Clinton touch of making you feel you were the most important person in the world. For a hermetic, austere writer, he was almost garrulous!"

After Beckett's 1989 death, Irwin grew intrigued with "Texts for Nothing," which director-actor Joseph Chaikin had dramatized and enacted in New York.

Though Irwin performed Chaikin's impressionistic version of all 13 parts of "Texts for Nothing" in 1992, he later longed to do his own version. With the blessings of the Beckett estate, he crafted a script that contained only the original prose pieces Nos. 1, 9, 11 and 13 — all spoken verbatim.

"I realized for me these are very Irish pieces of writing. There are a lot of allusions to land — the quay, the heath, the tracks. So I wanted to root in to the earth."

Being Irish-American himself, and having spent a year exploring the Emerald Isle during a high-school year abroad, Irwin says he felt right in tune with Beckett's "rich, earthy ruminations."

In the show, he adopts the guise of a shabby vagrant (not unlike the hobos in "Godot"), who stands on a mound of soil while rummaging through conflicted memories and musings.

'Godot' goes on

Irwin keeps a list of "about a dozen other projects" he'd like to attack soon — a Georges Feydeau comedy, a new piece, "The Clown Lecture," more Molière. But his future plans also include more Beckett.

"For one thing, I'll be doing 'Waiting for Godot' for the rest of my life, because it's so great and so hard to pull off," he revealed. "I'm reading it in Spanish now."

And does he find an affinity between clowning, and speaking the surreal, poetic words of one of the past century's most celebrated and controversial authors?

"Oh yes. Beckett loved going to the Gaieties, to see the comics. He loved silent-movie comedies. This piece is incredibly funny at times, in its mix of irony and earnestness.

"Beckett asked a lot of big questions about life. But he asked them simply and honestly."

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com.