Four rarely-performed pieces – Rough for Theatre I, Rockaby, Act Without Words II, Neither and Come and Go – are directed by revered producer and director Peter Brook. The works reflect themes from Beckett’s best-known plays – the search for truth, the futility of human existence and the opposition of hope and despair.
Rough for Theatre I
Written in French in the 1950s, Rough for Theatre I features a blind man and
a physically disabled man who meet by chance and consider the possibility
of joining forces to unite sight and mobility in the interests of survival.
Rockaby
In Rockaby, which was written in English in 1980, a woman dressed in a
black evening dress rocks herself in a rocking chair.
Act Without Words II
Written in French in 1956, Act Without Words II is a 10-minute mime
involving two players, A and B, who are in two large sacks on the stage.
Beckett specified ‘violent’ lighting and extended the notion by having the
players prodded into action by a ‘goad’. A is ‘slow, awkward and absent’
whereas B is ‘brisk, rapid, precise’.
Neither
The poem Neither is – like all of Beckett’s work from its very inception –
about the instant ‘when the boredom of living is replaced by the suffering of
being’ (Proust, 8), familiar to us since Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Watt and
Molloy.
Come and Go
Written in English in 1965, this piece has only 121 words in all. Beckett’s
note to the text is almost twice as long. Three women meet in a softly lit
place. Seated on a bench facing the audience, they reminisce about old
school days.
‘May we not speak of the old days? [Silence.] Of what came after? [Silence.]
Shall we hold hands in the old way?
Fragments was performed at the Perth International Arts Festival 2009.