Great playwrights loom large at the Guthrie Theater. Literally. Enormous portraits line the exterior of the big blue building by the Mississippi, bearing images of such legendary writers for the stage as George Bernard Shaw, Tennessee Williams and one-time Twin Citian August Wilson.

Step inside, head up to the Guthrie’s proscenium theater, and you’ll find another dramatist taking up an iconic position, both on the wall and as the inspiration for 90 minutes of examination and admiration. He is Samuel Beckett, the 20th-century Irish-born author who took the whole art of playwriting — and theater — in a profoundly different direction than anyone imagined possible.

Presenting this homage is Bill Irwin, a Tony-winning actor and MacArthur “genius grant” fellow who’s used the clowning tradition as a tool for offering insights into the nature of being human. And that dovetails nicely with Beckett’s work, which has a questioning quality about life’s purpose and often uses humor in seeking the answer.

With “On Beckett,” Irwin makes clear early on that he’s not a literary scholar, just an actor with some observations and expertly delivered examples to share. Over 90 minutes, Irwin masterfully explains why Beckett’s writing was so unlike anyone else’s. He employs old-school physical comedy, but mostly comes off as the charmingly engaging literature or drama professor of your dreams.

For most of the show’s first hour, I felt Irwin’s efforts a tremendous success. Beckett can be a tough nut to crack for readers and theatergoers, and Irwin makes him admirably accessible. Like his mentor, James Joyce, Beckett presented on paper the way that words can sound inside a human mind, and this actor presents that eloquently.

Alas, “On Beckett” stumbles down the stretch. While it’s fun to watch Irwin show off his clowning skills in baggy pants and big shoes, he never establishes a strong case for what that skill can tell us about the art of Beckett. And the final stories about his experiences in productions of “Waiting for Godot” seem like both too much and not enough: Too tight a focus upon the meaning of specific lines and too little about the play’s deeper meaning.

Yet, as lectures about literature and drama go, “On Beckett” might be the most entertaining one you’ll ever experience. And it’s rare among theatrical examples of Beckett’s genius in that most of the seven scenes Irwin performs weren’t written for the stage at all. Three of them are from Beckett’s collection of short prose, “Texts for Nothing,” and two more are from his novels. Most compelling is a section of “The Unnamable,” a breathtaking novel that I strongly recommend as not only a breakthrough for Beckett but for the whole form of fiction.

As I left the Guthrie, passing between those enormous portraits, I found myself thinking it a worthwhile evening, but also imagining how great it would be if this theater put together a little Beckett festival up in the underused Dowling Studio on the ninth floor. Many of his short plays are brief enough that you could present six to eight in an evening. Maybe invite the artistic directors of our many outstanding small Twin Cities theater companies to each take a crack at one. Then we could look back upon Irwin’s “On Beckett” as having been a wonderfully insightful introduction.

‘On Beckett’

When: Through March 24

Where: Guthrie Theater, 818 Second St. S., Mpls.

Tickets: $82-$17, available at 612-377-2224 or guthrietheater.org

Capsule: An entertaining and educational exploration of a revolutionary writer’s style.

Rob Hubbard can be reached at wordhub@yahoo.com.

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