Now Playing Through December 4: Fragments

“Unflinching and painfully funny, this is Beckett as it should be done.”

– The Sunday Times

 4 STARS ****
“Exquisitely focused.”
– Time Out New York

Following acclaimed performances internationally, Theatre for a New Audience, in association with Baryshnikov Arts Center, presents the New York premiere of C.I.C.T. / Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord’s Fragments from the texts by Samuel Beckett at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, 450 West 37th Street.

Fragments assembles the five Beckett shorts: Rough for Theatre I, Rockaby, Act without Words II, Neither and Come and Go. Running through December 4, Fragments is directed by Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne and features Jos Houben, Kathryn Hunter and Marcello Magni, three artists who have worked extensively with Théâtre de Complicité.

In another of his exquisitely crafted, late-career creations, Mr. Brook and Ms. Estienne interpret the 20th century’s greatest playwright. Beckett was acclaimed in part for his incomparable concision, his unique mastery of the breathtakingly profound short work.

“Beckett was a perfectionist,” writes legendary director Peter Brook, “but can one be a perfectionist without an intuition of perfection? Today, with the passage of time, we see how false were the labels stuck on Beckett—despairing, negative, pessimistic. Indeed, he peers into the filthy abyss of human existence. His humor saves him and us from falling in. He rejects theories, dogmas, that offer pious consolations, yet his life was a constant, aching search for meaning.”

Fragments was first presented in 2006 at Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord with the collaboration of Lilo Baur and revived later in co-production with the Young Vic Theatre in London. Fragments is the third collaboration between Theatre for a New Audience and Peter Brook and C.I.C.T. / Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord following 2009’s The Grand Inquisitor and 2010’s Love is My Sin.

For more information or to order tickets, please click here.