Theater

Harry Potter’s Michael Gambon takes to the stage in ‘All That Fall’

“How can I go on? I cannot.”

And with those fateful words, we know we’re watching a Beckett play — in this case, “All That Fall.”

That we’re seeing it instead of listening is a privilege, since this began life as a radio play, first broadcast on the BBC in 1957. This first-ever staging, a hit when it debuted last year in London, just opened here, and it’s stunning, especially when you consider its stars: the sublime Eileen Atkins and Michael Gambon, Dumbledore from the “Harry Potter” films, in his first appearance on a New York stage in nearly two decades.

Per the Beckett estate’s rigorous stipulations, the piece is performed as if the actors were appearing in a radio drama, clutching scripts and standing underneath microphones. But the artificiality of the conceit imposed on Trevor Nunn — the director of “Cats” and “Les Misérables” — does nothing to detract from its elemental power and trenchant humor.

It concerns an obese, elderly woman, Mrs. Rooney — that she’s played by the whippet-thin Atkins is humorous in itself — who’s trudging through the Irish landscape to pick up her blind husband (Gambon) from the train station. Along the way, she has comically tense encounters with a gallery of colorful figures: a bicycle-riding old man, a dung peddler, a religious spinster and a passing motorist who, in an example of the play’s raucous humor, labors mightily to lift her into his car. It’s all accompanied by recorded sound effects, from a squawking rooster to a menacing howling wind.

Her husband’s train is late, for dark reasons left unexplained until the end. When the blind man finally arrives, led by a young boy, his violent bluster is overpowering. But the riotous laughter the couple share while contemplating their preacher’s upcoming sermon shows us the strong bond between them.

The stars are superb, with Atkins mining her character’s eccentricities with poignancy and wit. And Gambon is devastating, especially in the chillingly ambiguous final moments, when he unleashes an anguished primal howl that will send shivers up your spine.