Fragments - Rockaby/Rough Theatre I/Act Without Words/Come and Go/Neither

Synopsis

Fragments brings together five little known short plays by the greatest theatre poet since Aeschylus:

Our Review:

29 August 2008

Peter Brook’s staging of five short Beckett pieces has returned to the Young Vic, where it started last September in the Maria studio. Kathryn Hunter and Marcello Magni are now joined by the tall and rangy Khalifa Natour (replacing Jos Houben) and the show is slightly re-conceived in the larger thrust arena.

The clowning is broader, the atmosphere less whispered and church-like, the exquisite lighting of Philippe Vialatte less overpowering. The performance, in other words, has settled into itself, no doubt reaping the benefits of a world-wide tour from Europe to Chicago, Hong Kong and Sao Paulo.

I still feel, though, that the monologue Neither doesn’t earn its place, and Hunter is a victim of her own mobility and some busy cross beams. But the confrontation of the blind violinist (Natour) and the one-legged beggar (Magni) in Rough for Theatre I remains an absolute gem, a sort of distilled, more clownish version of Godot. And the same pair in...

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Latest User Review

Joesmith - 1 September 2008:

THE BEST SHOW IN LONDON....... or perhaps anywhere....ever!...

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