How It Is - world premiere of all 3 parts at Palazzo Diedo, Venice

FROM 6 TO 21, JUNE 2026
PALAZZO DIEDO

rehearsal images by Ewa Figaszewska

Palazzo Diedo and Gare St Lazare Ireland present the world premiere performance of How It Is by Samuel Beckett. 

Directed by Judy Hegarty Lovett, performed by Conor Lovett and Stephen Dillane, composed and sound designed by Mel Mercier and lighting by Simon Bennison. 

Featuring design collaboration by artist Michael Craig Martin. Guest musician, Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh. 

Samuel Beckett's novel How It Is is one of his most enigmatic works, a novel entirely without punctuation marks, its incantatory quality and rhythmic musicality are incomparable In a compelling innovation of form that pushes language to its limits, Beckett has created a work that is as evocative and emotionally charged as it is perplexing.

Gare St Lazare Ireland are leading exponents of Beckett’s writing and here they stage  the poetry and musicality of the work in a site specific setting combining art, music and literature as a language event.

Supported by Culture Ireland.

How It Is Parts 1 (2018) & 2 (2019) and film of all 3 parts (2021) funded by The Arts Council of Ireland.

Gare St Lazare Ireland leads the way in staging Samuel Beckettʼs plays and prose. Since 1996, the company has performed and developed works that are timeless (Waiting for Godot), cross-disciplinary (The Beckett Trilogy, How it Is), and hybrid (Shades Through A Shade, The Last Tape). Whether working independently or in collaboration, the company brings fresh interpretations and inventive approaches to Beckettʼs work. Their singular focus offers audiences and artists, in Ireland, the UK, France, and the USA and elsewhere, to new and dynamic ways of experiencing this Irish masterʼs legacy.