Photo Flash: Company SJ from Ireland Performs Beckett in River to River Festival, 6/26-29

Company SJ from Ireland present ACT WITHOUT WORDS II by Samuel Beckett at Theatre Alley as part of River to River Festival, New York, Tuesday 26 – Friday 29 June 2012, nightly 9pm. Directed by Sarah Jane Scaife with designs by Aedin Cosgrove, the show features A – Raymond Keane and B – Bryan Burroughs. Check out photos of Keane and Burroughs performing below!

A powerful production of Samuel Beckett's Act Without Words II directed by Ireland's Beckett specialist Sarah-Jane Scaife, who has directed and lectured on Beckett all over the world from China to India, Greece to Mongolia. A run-away success at Dublin Theatre Festival 2010, this show wowed the audience at two London Festivals in 2011 - Greenwich + Docklands and the inaugural Imagine Watford It is performed live on the street by two superb physical theatre experts, Raymond Keane (Director of Barabbas Theatre Company) and Bryan Burroughs (winner Best Supporting Actor: Irish Times Theatre Awards 2009. Scaife's expertise in movement choreography, coupled with intimate experience of the subject matter, lends powerful resonances of homelessness and drug addiction to this sensitively directed and very moving production. The show is designed by Ireland's most inspired and sought-after designer - Irish Times Theatre Award winner 2011 and 2010, Aedin Cosgrove, whose work continuously travels all over the world.

Two characters A and B wake up, crawl out of sacks, live their daily lives and crawl back in again, repeating these actions over and over. How familiar does that sound? In this street production we see two people crawl out of their sleeping sacks…. So what is the difference between us and them, except for their addiction and homelessness?

Performing at New York's River to River Festival is exceptionally meaningful to Scaife who lives and works in Ireland, and first discovered this wonderful Beckett piece while studying mime and drama in New York over 20 years ago. She has carried it with her and it has been performed in many different spaces - from Ireland's National Theatre (The Abbey Theatre) to obscure open landscapes and city laneways. She is delighted to return to the streets of New York for this American premiere production of a truly universal mime-play.

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Photo credit: Futoshi Sakauchi