Apparently I just finished a reading of a play in a little Irish pub. Who holds readings in a pub? I don't know. I don't know how I came to be involved but there I was, setting my script down, having a look around and ready for a pint. I didn't know any of the actors and I've no idea what the play was, but it was over, it seemed as though it went well enough and participants and listeners were chatting about it. I noticed that one of the listeners was Samuel Beckett. I was stunned. I thought he died some 17 years ago but no, he was definitely alive, was not interested in chatting and was making his way to the bar to get a drink. I think I called my longtime friend whom I met when he directed Waiting For Godot years and years ago to tell him to get down here, quick, because there was a mind-blowing surprise waiting for him here. Sam was having a Jameson neat with a Guinness, God bless 'im. I wanted to buy the drink for him so I could boast that I bought Samuel Beckett a round but he already had his money on the bar, strumming his fingers while he waited. I thought, that's Sam Beckett, man, I should say something to him. But I just stood there instead, watching him sip his drink.
This was quite the unique Irish pub because it also inexplicably had a big wood-burning brick oven behind the bar for homemade pizza. Sam must've been hungry. Samuel Beckett wanted a pizza and he decided he wasn't going to wait for the bartender ... oh, right, there didn't seem to be any bartender or staff on duty in this Irish pub with a wood-burning brick oven for homemade pizza. If you wanted a drink, it just appeared. (Best. Pub. Ever.) So Sam went behind the bar to whip up his own pizza, with sausage, slapped it into the open furnace and stood sipping his drink at the end of the bar, waiting for his pizza to bake. Not a big talker, Sam. Maybe a nod or some idle chit chat, but for the most part he just observed the goings on with those Samuel Beckett eyes. When his pizza was ready he started to to take it out but he must've pushed it too far into the oven, so he reached into the oven to try and get it. That's the thing with 101 year old Nobel Prize winning playwrights who might've died 17 years ago, they just don't think sometimes. Realizing this was an incredibly absent-minded move, I ran over and saw that he was on fire a little bit. I quickly pulled Samuel Beckett out of the oven. We fell back and I helped him clap the flames out. We lay there on the floor of the bar, his back and right ear still smoking.
"Are you all right, man?" I ask.
"Grand," said Sam. "Me wrists are a bit hot."
And that was my moment. I helped him up. He had a sip of whiskey and wrapped his wrists in a wet towel someone handed him. By this time, my friend had shown up and was standing there awestruck. We moved down the bar and had a seat. Our Jameson and Guinness suddenly appeared (seriously, this bar is amazing). We didn't say a word. We just sat in this mad little Irish pub with a wood burning brick oven for homemade pizzas and no bartender or staff which holds play readings that nobody remembers and watched Samuel Beckett sip his whiskey and look around with those Samuel Beckett eyes.
I really have to remember where this place was because the night before I did another reading for a three-time Pulitzer Prize winning playwright who threatened to cut the face of an obnoxious actress with barbed wire because she didn't know who he was.
I'm telling you. Best. Pub. Ever.
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