At a time when world conflict is raising its ugly head again, Horse Country's exploration of the theme of conflict, whether personal, political, ethical, spiritual or actual seems sadly pertinent. Horse Country is a euphemism for the United States and the play opens with two seasoned comedy pros, Bob and Sam, propping up a bar in downtown America. American values, or rather global capitalism, is laid bare and exposed during the discussions between the two, which encompass golf, horses, fishing trips, talking seal acts and card games. A futile search for the nine of diamonds, which they have lost from their pack of cards, seems to sum up the need for a set of values to fill the hollow yearning at the heart of the nation. Calvitto and Schneider are very skilled performers and their clown-like precision-timing is brilliant and funny; they also bring, at the same time, a profound sense of isolation and alienation to the play. Bleak, Godot-like exchanges at the beginning gather pace with such velocity that by the end we appear to be witnessing Vladimir and Estragon on speed. CJ Hopkins is a great wordsmith and Horse Country is a robustly formed and fully fleshed play with the existential bare-boned spirit of Beckett's Waiting for Godot. This production, not surprisingly, won several prestigious prizes at the Edinburgh Festival last year. 
      By comparison, The Complete Lost Works of Samuel Beckett is less about the Great Man than Horse Country. The play takes the form of seven lost works by Beckett that have recently been 'discovered' in a dustbin and which the literary trustees are trying to police. The sketches include Barbara Cartland talking through a brain in a vat; a caricature of Michael Flatley, the Irish dancer of Lord of the Dance fame; and 'Happy, Happy Bunny Visits Sad, Sad Owl', a puppet show from the author at age seven - childish humour indeed. In 'If' a man dressed as a women in unconvincing wig, sits in a rocking chair listening to a song by Bread; this raised a giggle the first time, but by the eighth repetition the joke was wearing decidedly thin. 
      It is meant to be funny and an irreverent poke in jest at a man who was fiercely protective of his creativity, unfortunately as a piece of theatre it misses on both the entertainment and humour fronts. Despite the title, this play adds little to our knowledge or appreciation of Beckett although assuming a fairly comprehensive acquaintance with his works. Maybe I, together with the majority of the audience, left our collective sense of humour at home that evening.
Louise Page