Embers, a theatricalized presentation of one of legendary absurdist Samuel Beckett's early radio plays, will receive its U.S. premiere as part of BAM's Next Wave Festival in Brooklyn next month in a production by the Pan Pan Theatre Company.
Written in 1957 and first broadcast in 1959 on the BBC, Embers is about a man named Henry sitting alone on a beach in a swirl of memory and imagination as he contemplates his father's suicide, his dysfunctional marriage and family, and his failure as a writer.
The cast of a 2006 broadcast on BBC Radio 3, directed by Stephen Rea, included Michael Gambon, Sinéad Cusack and Rupert Graves.
This is not the first staged version of the play, but it's the first to be set inside a monolithic skull. It features a cast of only two, Andrew Bennett and áine Ní Mhuirí, who spend the entire one-hour production on stage with their faces just visible through the skull's eyes under Aedín Cosgrove's lighting, all under the direction of Gavin Quinn. The sculpture is by Andrew Clancy, the sound design by Jimmy Eadie.
The Scotsman called the production "a marriage of theatre and installation that seems to capture the hard, loving and implacable soul of the work, while giving it a new theatrical life."
Quinn and Cosgrove, both graduates of the Samuel Beckett Centre, Trinity College Dublin, co-founded the experimental Pan Pan Theatre 15 years ago and have since produced 22 theater works. Quinn describes their works' primary characteristics as "authenticity of the performer, humility of purpose, the world as a place of chaos and disorder full of oppositions, conflicts and complexities of existence." One suspects Beckett would approve.
Embers runs September 17-20 at the BAM Harvey Theater.
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