Actor Barry McGovern is regarded as Ireland's finest interpreter of Samuel Beckett's works. This month he'll perform his hit one-man show I'll Go On at New York's Lincoln Center Festival as part of Gate/Beckett, a program of three Beckett works also featuring Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes. CAHIR O'DOHERTY talks to McGovern about the show and the famous company he's keeping.

HOLD your breath. Barry McGovern, Ralph Fiennes and Liam Neeson will bring three of Samuel Beckett's greatest works, none of which were originally written for the stage, to New York this month. I'll Go On comprises three of Beckett's novels, which McGovern has performed to critical acclaim from in venues from Dublin to Sydney.

In First Love Fiennes (last seen as Susan Sarandon's Donegal born cross-dressing butler in HBO's Bernard and Doris) will star as a homeless man who befriends a mysterious woman, in a drama based on a 1946 Beckett novella. And in Eh Joe Neeson stars as a man confronted by a disembodied voice in an empty room.

Each of the plays is being staged separately and then together on same-day marathons in the city. So if a five-hour Beckett festival seems a bit intimidating, remember that the last time Fiennes and Neeson collaborated was on Steven Spielberg's epic drama Schindler's List - and that McGovern is widely considered one of the finest interpreters of Beckett's works.

"The first time I performed this play was in September, 1985 at the Dublin Theatre Festival," says McGovern during an interview with the Irish Voice. "I thought it would just last for six nights and that would be it. But it had a life of its own and it's taken me all around the world."

A former member of the famed Abbey Theatre Company, on television McGovern plays the conniving Bishop Bonnivet opposite Jonathan Rhys Myers in the Showtime series The Tudors. You may also have seen him in independent hits like Joe Versus the Volcano or Billy Bathgate, but more likely you've caught him in the bigger multiplex blockbusters like Far and Away, and Mel Gibson's Braveheart.

McGovern went to school in Castleknock in Dublin and then studied for his bachelor's in English at UCD. At the Abbey he studied acting and did his first Beckett show, Endgame, in college.

"I joined the Abbey Company the late 1970s and early 1980s when I toured the U.S. for the first time in The Shadow of a Gunman. And I've been freelancing ever since," McGovern says.

"Although I'm seen as a Beckett interpreter, and I'm not going to fight it, the truth is I've done more Shakespeare plays than Beckett ones. I've done musicals, operas, comedy, revue. I'm a working actor. But the Beckett thing has kind of clung to me."

Although the posters for the forthcoming Beckett shows are all over Manhattan and feature McGovern most prominently, the actor is typically modest about all the media fuss.

"They won't know who I am from Adam. They'll know the other two boys because they're big stars, but there you go," he says.

The first germs of the I'll Go On took creative root back in 1983 when Michael Colgan, the artistic director of Dublin's Gate Theatre, took over the reigns of the famous venue and approached McGovern with the idea to do a one man show based on Beckett's novels.

Says McGovern, "When I realized that I'd never get a chance to do a thing like it again and I decided to it. We settled on the three novels, and then the artist Robert Ballagh came on board to design the set (Ballagh went on to design the set for Riverdance).

"The script of I'll Go On is composed of Beckett's words, but the academic Gerry Dukes and myself have organized them into a play form. In reality all three novels would take just under 20 hours to recite, but the show is an hour and a half - so it's what you leave out, you know?"

As with anything by Samuel Beckett, there's very dark humor in the work, which translates (or doesn't) depending on where the play is performed.

"I think New York will love it, but there are some places you go where they don't really have a great sense of irony. I remember playing in Charlestown, South Carolina and it was a completely different prospect to playing it in the north of the country you know?

"If people are really into the wavelength of it they really get it. When I did it in Sydney, Australia a few years ago and they absolutely loved it, because there's a lot of Irish humor in it, and a lot of them are Irish."

One of the delights of McGovern's performance is to hear Beckett's work performed in the native idioms and cadences of Irish speech, where they make total sense. Although the plays are also universal, and they can be played in any culture, McGovern insists he'd rather watch a Japanese production that did it well than a bad Irish production.

"Just because you have the right voice doesn't mean you're going to be good," says McGovern. "But I do think it's an advantage to have an Irish voice because it's written in that kind of idiom. There are phrases, bits of slang, and it does suit us absolutely well."

Alongside performing in his play, McGovern will also step out with his famous co-stars to attend discussions related to the performances. "There's one talk we may all attend together called Beckett and Changing Genres on the 23rd of July. I'm on a panel with the other guys."

He and the other guys, as he calls them, will certainly be sought after throughout the run, but McGovern plans to get some rest and recreation time in with them too.

"We see one another and we all get on. It's Liam's first time to involve himself with Gate/Beckett. Now I haven't seen him for over 20 years since we were in the Abbey together. I used to go to parties in his flat before he went off to bigger things. So that'll be good.

"Ralph Fiennes, Charles Dance and I worked on the Beckett plays together in Sydney and we all got on very well, doing the shows and staying in the same hotels. So there'll be nights out, there'll be meals and parties. It's not like being in a play with different people, though - they are three different shows."

Although he's acted in the works of every major Irish playwright, McGovern believes that none of them have seriously challenged Beckett's mantle in all these years.

"His great friend who is still alive, Avigdor Arikha, an Israeli painter said that someone like Beckett comes along once in every 600 years," says McGovern. "Like a Dante or a Shakespeare or a Beethoven you know?

"I do think he's one of the great writers of the 20th century - he's very Irish, but he's very universal. If ever future generations look back to the horrors of the 20-century and what happened, Beckett is someone who wrote about that like no one else could."

And humor is the way to leaven it. It's the most Irish of all impulses. At the last ditch all you can do is laugh, and that's what Beckett's black humor and irony was all about. People still sometimes don't understand that, says McGovern, adding that he hopes his forthcoming performances will help them to reconsider.

Gate/Beckett will be presented at the John Jay College, 10th Avenue between 58th and 59th Streets from July 16 through July 25, or all three in marathons on July 26 and July 27. In addition, there will be a poetry and prose reading preceding each marathon, featuring the cast and special guests. For tickets call 212-721-6500.