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For those unfamiliar with Samuel Beckett’s tumultuous relationship with his homeland, it is easy to imagine him as one of Ireland’s most-loved and respected writers. The Samuel Beckett Bridge, which looms over the Liffey is cast as an homage to the Nobel prize-winning author and playwright, but it is more subtly a corrective from a nation that so vehemently rejected him for the most part of his career. The fact that the bridge itself is designed in perhaps the most un-Beckettian aesthetic imaginable – a harp lying on its side – speaks to the difficulty Ireland has with understanding one of its most famous artists. Someone who appears to perfectly understand the esoteric writer is the formidable Olwen Fouréré, whose performance of Lessness in Project Art Centre’s Space Upstairs is a haunting-but-mesmeric interpretation of the writer’s infamous 60-sentence prose piece.

Lessness imagines a typically-Beckettian landscape of “grey sky no cloud no sound no stir ash grey sand” with “little body same grey as the earth sky ruins only upright” and was aleatorically-composed by the author, originally in French (Sans) and largely pieced together at random. Fouréré’s staging and delivery is utterly minimalist, as she sits at a table lit by a lamp and dramatises Beckett’s words. The task of simply memorising the lines is an impressive feat in and of itself, but Fouréré manages to methodically unpack Beckett’s vast literary challenge as she masterfully directs her words across his imagined eerie purgatory.

Indeed, Fouréré’s accomplished delivery creates the most curious of theatrical experiences as she transports the audience into Beckettian liminality. The process is simultaneously and paradoxically meta- and undramatic. Fouréré is already in character and on stage as the audience take their seats and the usual ‘note your nearest fire exit’ and ‘please turn off all mobile devices’ announcements are amplified around the theatre in her distinctive voice. What Fouréré builds towards in this performance is an assumption of the role of observer and storyteller and even if she has to sit in Beckett’s austere terrain to recount it, she never interrupts the story with her delivery. When you become conscious of the performativity of the text itself, Fouréré lulls you back into a space that might be notoriously hard to decipher, but is entrancing in its “endlessness.”

Few theatre-makers or artists could take on Beckett quite like Olwen Fouréré. The Irish actress born to French parents is the ideal candidate to tackle the once-Paris-based writer. Renowned for her avant-garde experimentalism (think riverrun – her adaptation of Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake), Lessness provides the perfect stage for Fouréré to explore her signature aesthetic. While her narration never comes between Beckett and his story, in her measured and skilful delivery, Fouréré not only moves towards expunging Beckett’s esotericism, but also offers a performance that matches the beguiling intricacies of his prose.

Lessness is currently showing at the Project Arts Centre (Space Upstairs) until 30 January.