etb English
Theatre
Berlin International Performing Arts Center

Pan Pan’s Cascando by Samuel Beckett

Accompany Samuel Beckett’s curious figures into an uncertain future. Attired in dark cloaks and given headphones, audiences are guided through a rhythmic, immersive, group choreographical experience.

First broadcast in 1963, Cascando begins with the curious character Opener (Daniel Reardon) setting the scene: the month of May, a time of “reawakening”.  The Opener commands two other presences: the winding Voice (Andrew Bennett) caught between arrest (” – stories … if you could finish it …”) and progress (“- nearly … just a few more … a few more”), and Music (designed by Jimmy Eadie), whole and forceful.

Director Gavin Quinn, dramaturg Nicholas Johnson and designer Aedín Cosgrove recognize this as a journey. The audience are sent walking in an outdoor landscape, wearing cloaks and listening to the play on headphones.  The unhurried pace of Bennett’s deep and riveting voice provides a rhythm for our steps, as we listen to Voice’s struggle to tell a story.

The absent figure named Woburn is identified by his “same old coat” and vague memories of a cave or shelter. As the same-dressed audience pass each other in the dark surroundings, it appears that images of the text have been slyly extracted. Has the audience been unknowingly cast as the play’s mystifying wanderer?

Along this journey, the tremendous pulse of Eadie’s music threatens to overwhelm. It rises in a wave of crashing strings, eventually settling to ring, pining, with Voice’s efforts. If you suspected that Woburn’s journey resembled a pilgrimage, Reardon’s sullen Opener somewhat confirms it, suggesting God and a parable: “two outings and a return, to the village, to the inn”.

Pan Pan was founded in 1993 by Co-Artistic Directors Aedín Cosgrove and Gavin Quinn. The company has created 52 new theater and performance pieces and toured worldwide, receiving multiple national and international awards. Pan Pan have toured extensively to prestigious venues and festivals around the world including BAM, Lincoln Center, St Ann’s Warehouse, NCPA China, Edinburgh International Festival Sydney and Melbourne Festivals, the Barbican and HAU Berlin. Since its inception, Pan Pan has constantly examined and challenged the nature of its work and has resisted settling into well-tried formulas. Developing new performance ideas is at the center of the company’s mission. All the works created are original, either through the writing (original plays) or through the totally unique expression of established writings. Pan Pan tries to approach theater as an open form of expression and has developed an individual aesthetic that has grown from making performances in a host of different situations
and conditions.

Photo: Matthew Andrews