Set during a performance of Happy Days and told from three female perspectives, this novel is lively, intimate and packed with clever connections about what it means to be a woman. As the three women search for meaning in the play on stage, so too do they examine their own lives with threads of Beckett's play woven through their narratives. Imaginatlively structured and engrossing.

I felt like there was a lack of plot.
The characters were under developed
It’s a unique style of writing.
I enjoyed the premise but the execution wasn’t good

Unfortunately, this wasn't the book for me. The dialogue and not knowing the play just made it difficult for me to become invested in the story.

This novel has a solid structure - we go deep with three characters who are at the same 'performace' - see what she did there - of a Samuel Beckett play. I gotta be honest this play seems like I would absolutely hate it from the description of it.

Anyway, the three characters are at different stages of life and the play and the environment outside of this impacts each of them in different ways.

There was one big early on that made me scratch my head a bit to do with sunburn...it seemed that maybe the author had made an assumption similar to one she has one of the characters later make to make a space for commentary but I did wonder if the author was aware that she had done a similar thing herself with this one throwaway line.

I appreciated the language and the structure of this, but the characters, while well described didn't leap off the page for me - I caught glimpses of the real in them but they largely felt imagined and I was aware of the tight control the author had over them.

I would read more from this author as I can see the skill on show in this one.

My thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

I like a book with a fast pace and a complex plot, so this really wasn't for me. I found the characters to be relatable but did have to dnf due to not connecting with the story.

The concept for this story was great and I loved the multiple storylines and voices brought together by their location and situation. The pacing felt a little off, even though the author paid detailed attention to the development of their characters.

However, I did feel that the ending was a bit 'meh', and was frustrated at the lack of resolution for the LGBT character, which feels all too familiar in fiction.

I can sometimes struggle with novels set in the theatre world, but The Performance is so brilliantly structured, plotted with such pitch perfection despite being a character led story, that once I picked this novel up, there was no chance I was setting it down until I'd reached the last page. I love a slow burn that nevertheless keeps you hooked - this performance certainly delivered.

The Performance has a wonderful premise. Three women are in a theatre in Melbourne, watching a performance of Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days, while forest fires rage outside. Margot is an academic in her sixties, a subscriber to the theatre who is taking her regular seat, unsure of what she has come to see. Summer is a drama student, working as an usher and learning from watching the performance multiple times. Ivy is a philanthropist and a long-time Beckett fan, there both because of her love of the work and because the theatre hopes she will fund them.

The narration mostly takes the form of the thoughts of the three characters in alternating chapters. This means there is no action as such, the story is told through each character’s reflections on her life, interspersed with her response to the play and the environment in the theatre. Thomas beautifully evokes that tension between immersion in the drama on stage, the distractions of the audience and the physical environment, and the intrusion of their own thoughts.

The format changes at the interval. This is the point at which the characters interact and is presented in the form of a play. This is clever for two reasons – it allows the reader to step outside the points of view of the characters, and it suggests that their interactions are themselves a performance of a kind, that in moving from interior monologue to action, they are playing a version of themselves and are conscious of how they are perceived.

I don’t want to say too much about the stories of the three characters because it would spoil the intricate unfolding. I did enjoy the way the thoughts and experiences of the characters played off against the words of the actors on stage (it definitely helps if you know Happy Days or something of Beckett’s life and works).

I did have a couple of reservations. One is that the treatment of climate change felt a bit heavy handed at times. It features in the forest fires, the staging of the play, and the thoughts of the characters, all running in the same direction. Although I sympathise with Thomas’s message, that did make it feel a little preachy. The novel might have benefited from something that ran antagonistic, or if readers were left to draw their own inferences.

I also felt that the novel needed a stronger ending. In a literary novel you don’t expect a dramatic climax, but as with Happy Days, I want to feel that something fundamental has shifted, and in this I didn’t.

All in all though, The Performance is an interesting novel with an innovative structure and worth a read if you like understated literary fiction.
*
I received a copy of The Performance from the publisher via Netgalley.

This wasn’t for me. I didn’t feel like the writing style kept me engaged and there wasn’t much of plot line. This could of easily been half the length as nothing really happened. I also didn’t care for any of the characters.

I’m clearly in the minority here as most of the reviews are people loving this but I just didn’t unfortunately which is a shame as the premise sounded interesting.

The Performance focuses on three women present for a play, Margot, Summer and Ivy and what is happening within their own personal lives at that time in the theatre.

The whole book take place during the duration of the Samuel Beckett play ‘Happy Days’ with extracts from the play leading to the characters being reminded of something and reminiscing about their pasts.

Although you don’t need to know the play (I had never heard of it) to follow the storyline I did feel a bit detached from the sections with the play as I just couldn’t connect with it.

There was a lack of a key plot line and given 95% of the book is inner monologue it became very heavy reading at times, this style did not work for me.

I liked the diversity portrayed by the characters but felt like their plot lines could have been a lot more developed.

I had a great time reading The Performance by Claire Thomas. As someone who enjoys the theatre for so, so many reasons, the setting couldn't have been more perfect. The theatre as a refuge from wildfires? Yes. I loved the stories of these women. Their lifes and experiences were treated with such delecacy and kindness, it was a joy to read. The writing style fit wonderfully with the play, I thought. It was a bit slow at times but it's the same impression I always got from Beckett plays so I could only welcome it in here. I really had a great time.

‘The Performance’ has a really great premise that drew me in; three women in different stages of their lives all spend a night watching a play whilst wildfires blaze across the hills around their community. Margot is a professor dreading the concept of retirement, Summer is a theatre usher and drama student and Ivy is midway through what appears to be a perfect life. As these three women watch the Beckett play unravel on stage their minds wander towards their own anxieties and memories as to what have led to this moment.
Thomas’ style is very steady and detailed, treating each character’s situation with compassion and intimacy that is emphasised by that environment of sitting quietly in a darkened theatre. For me the pace was a little slow but for me the pace mirrored the use of Beckett as the playwright; who was known for oversimplification of his scenes almost stripping his characters to their most basic human traits. As with all good plays I found the characters of this novel stayed with me after and I couldn’t help but have questions as to what happened after they all left?
Overall brilliant deep, compassionate story.

Interesting premise to this book three different women are watching Samuel Beckett's Happy Days (the one about a woman during in rubbish). All three are distracted, lost in their thoughts, which occasionally mirror the play but other times not, all are also very aware of et wildfires raging through the countryside outside Melbourne where this is set. I liked that the women were at ages that represented the different experience Margot is 70 dealing with a husband with dementia who has turned violent. Ivy is late 30's early 40's with a young child and a painful past. Summer is early 20's working as a theatre usher and worried about her girlfriend who is in the fire zone. My main frustration with the book is the number of questions she leaves open at the end, there is hope for one, but there is no resolution for for Summer and given how many LGBT characters have been written off through the years in fiction this feels uncomfortably familiar. The pacing was also slow at times, maybe deliberate mimicking of Beckett but I found myself falling asleep. The author is very clever in how she weaves these stories together and how she reveals each character's back story, it was very relatable to have your mind wonder whilst watching a play; (often I would argue a way to tell how hood the play is, whether it absorbs you or not). My favourite part was the interval, written as a play, it was quick, there was dialogue and an energy that was missing from all the internal thoughts. Overall, I'm glad I read it but this is the first time a book recommended by Patrick Gale didn't live up to his praise.

With thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for a review.

In the middle of Claire Thomas’ The Performance, the prose narrative of three women sitting in a theatre and watching Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days takes a break and their story is told instead through a play script, as the three of them enter one another’s orbits for the first time and become aware of the existence of the other two. It is a slightly jarring change of pace, but Thomas can’t have intended for it to be anything but disruptive to our reading, in the same way that the interval is disruptive to the play Margot, Ivy and Summer have been watching, and disruptive to their trains of thought. For the first time we are removed from the women, instead of being invited, unfettered, into their deepest thoughts, and see them as other people see them. It is a fascinating use of form. It also reminds us, as does everything in this book – the title, the premise, the setting – that everything is a performance. Our entire lives, a careful deliberate series of choices for other people to see and digest. Where better to do that than at a theatre, where we have brief but memorable encounters with the people around us?
It is a blisteringly hot evening in Melbourne, with forest fires raging outside the cool, air-conditioned world of the theatre. Margot, Ivy and Summer are the three women watching Happy Days, Samuel Beckett’s celebrated play in which the character of Winnie is buried up to her waist and then her neck in earth. Despite this, Winnie is an upbeat person, hoping that one day the earth will crack open and release her. Optimism – or at least the illusion of optimism, despite overwhelming odds – could be the thesis for the whole of The Performance.
Because, despite the oddness of the play that they are watching, and how it allows the women to meander from thought to thought, The Performance doesn’t become downbeat or overly melancholy. Given some of the subject matter, that is quite a feat. Margot is a successful professor of literature, a subscriber to the theatre who knows all of the people that usually occupy the seats around her. Ivy is a philanthropist, uncomfortable with having been given her tickets for free. Summer is the youngest of the three, an usher who perpetually misses the first ten minutes of the play waiting in the lobby with the latecomers. They all know Happy Days well, and so none of them are particularly focused on what is happening on the stage.
Instead, they are all deep within their own minds, and the focus is on performance. The performance of gender roles. The performance of societal roles. The performance of normality, even. Margot and Ivy are both successful in their fields of work, and proud of it. They are also mothers, with vastly different experiences of that role – particularly in how they have processed what society expects of them. Their inner lives are rich and nuanced, and they are both highly aware of the impressions that they make on people.
Summer, on the other hand, younger and suffering from anxiety, is less inwardly focused. She is well aware of the fires outside the theatre, partly because much of her anxiety springs from environmental concerns, but also more immediately because her girlfriend April is attempting to make the drive to her parents up in the mountains – into the very midst of the fires. Her inner life is no less nuanced than Margot’s or Ivy’s, but she is much less concerned with how people see her than they are; indeed, her one run in with Ivy, where she is suddenly forced to understand that other people perceive and make judgements about her, seems to be a bit of a shock to her system.
The Performance is a strong, character driven narrative, with a laser sharp focus on the inner lives of women and how we perceive one another, and ourselves. How our eyes drift over something that should perhaps be concerning because we do not want to see it, but how the slight tickly cough of a stranger in a quiet theatre can be a cause for much irritation. We are all the main characters in our own play, but we shouldn’t ever stop being aware that other people are the main characters in their own.
Review copy provided.

I hate to say it - and by the looks of it I'm in the minority on Goodreads - but this book just completely went over my head.
The writing style wasn't for me, and the pacing felt very slow. There wasn't much plot and I wasn't engaged. Just didn't get it!

I am afraid that this book is as interesting as a slice of processed white bread. There is a slowness to the movements and actions described by the narrative (an arm resting on a divider, a wine stain spreading on a garment) that did little to engage me as a reader. I also recognise that this may be due to my age, and perhaps, this will appeal to older readers.

I loved the atmosphere of sitting in the theatre that was created within the book. I also really enjoyed the fact that we got to meet three completely different women and that their storylines merged at one point. However, I didn’t like how the knowledge/or lack of knowledge about the shown play determines the perception f the book. I didn’t know the play and therefore couldn’t enjoy the book in the same way as someone might do who knows the Beckett play.

This is my favorite read so far this year. 3 women 1 night and the events that occur from that one performance. It’s is the cleverest book, I love how it explores all the issues we as women face but through a lens that is so different.
Fantastic read.

It was its structure that attracted me to Claire Thomas’ The Performance. As its title suggests, the backdrop for her novel is a Melbourne theatre where three women are watching a performance of Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days, in which Winnie first appears emerging from a mound of grass in to which she sinks further in the second act while Willie is largely offstage. Margot is a professor contemplating her fractious relationship with her sick husband, Ivy is a philanthropist with a difficult past while Summer is a drama student, working as an usher, anxious about her girlfriend, too close to the bushfires raging on the edges of the city.

Thomas vividly evokes that feeling of anticipation, settling in your seat, sometimes slightly irritated by the coughing of a fellow audience member or the territorial negotiation of the armrest. Her novel is structured so that we spend a good deal of time in Margot, Summer and Ivy’s heads, bringing them together neatly at the interval before they return to their seats. I thoroughly enjoyed this witty, perceptive novel which hangs together beautifully as its characters unfold their stories through thoughts, memories and reflections, occasionally offering their views on the play enacted in front of them.

Although quite a short novel I found this quite hard going. Set in an Australian theatre where three women, Margot, Summer and Ivy are all watching a Samuel Beckett play. Margot, an academic approaching retirement, Summer is one of the theatres ushers and Ivy a wealthy patron of the theatre. Through the journey of the two halves of the play we learn more about their own lives, their loves, their anxieties, their fears.

I liked the premise BUT I think the main bit that didn’t gel for me was that I am not familiar with the Samuel Beckett play “waiting for Godot”... and there are SO many references within each chapter that I felt I couldn’t really engage. I think you have to know something about the play to understand the significance of each chapter, each character, the symbolism. As I’ll be honest, it was lost on me!

So I’m a bit loath to fully review as I just didn’t “get it” and I think this is my failing for not knowing the play, and not the authors.