Three Short Plays by Samuel Beckett

Old Red Lion Theatre · 7-25 April 2015

About the Plays

Whispering Beasts presents Three Short Plays by Samuel Beckett, a triple bill of rarely performed Beckett plays at the Old Red Lion Theatre. The production, consisting of three dark comedies Act Without Words I, Catastrophe and Rough for Theatre II, will be directed by Sara Joyce and will run from 7 – 25 April, with a press night on 9 April.

Director: Sara Joyce; Designer: Charlie Marie Austin; Lighting Designer: Joshua Pharo; Composer and Sound Designer: Greg Harradine.

Act Without Words I
Trapped alone in a desert, a man is teased and tormented by an unseen force as he seeks salvation.

Rough for Theatre II
In the dead of night, Morvan and Bertrand are deciding the destiny of a man who is contemplating a fatal jump from the window of his apartment.

Catastrophe
An autocratic Director, his bewildered Assistant and a seemingly submissive Performer are whipping themselves into a frenzy on the final rehearsal before their opening night.

Charged with humour, anger and humanity, these plays create a surreal yet familiar world; a world of mystery and mercurial characters, where control of everything is undetermined and salvation can emerge from the most unexpected places.

About the Author

Samuel Beckett was a playwright, novelist, director and poet, widely regarded as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. His plays include Waiting for Godot, Happy Days, Endgame, Krapp’s Last Tape, Not I, Eh Joe, Footfalls and Rockaby.

About the Director

Sara Joyce directs. She is currently Assistant Director at Soho Theatre on the most recent production Death of a Comedian currently on tour to Lyric Theatre Belfast and Abbey Theatre Dublin. Last year Sara directed Click, The Playboy Variations and Soho Young Playwrights project, which she will direct again in June, working with very young writers towards a professional production of their own plays.

About the Company

Whispering Beasts is an award-winning theatre company, founded by Bryan Moriarty and Sara Joyce, dedicated to creating new productions of classic and contemporary Irish plays in London. Its mission is to explore, trace and nurture what it refers to as the Irish Voice – a unifying set of themes, concerns and motifs that recur throughout the Irish theatrical canon.

Whispering Beasts is the winner of the Deutsche Bank Award for Drama and resident theatre company at the London Irish Centre where it is holding workshops in tandem with this project. The company wants to bring Beckett to a new audience, and will be collaborating with Copenhagen Youth Project - a local youth group - throughout rehearsals with a view to feeding their reactions to the plays, and ideas about what they would like to see from theatre into the final production.

Listings

Old Red Lion Theatre, 418 St John Street, London, EC1V 4NJ
Box Office: 0844 412 4307
Website: www.oldredliontheatre.co.uk

Performances:
Tuesday – Saturday 7.30pm
Saturday matinees 3pm
Sunday matinees 2pm
Relaxed performance at 3pm on 23 April, as part of Old Red Lion Extra Live!

Tickets:
£15.00/£12.50

For further information please contact Alexander Milward on 07903 218 280 or alexander@katemorleypr.com