Acte sans parole I

Documentary on the adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s ‘Acte Sans Parole’ (Act without words) by the choreographer Dominique Dupuy who, by bringing together circus arts, theatre and dance, reinforces the piece’s intrinsic resonance and its radical relevance.

This is a deserted space, unidentifiable save for seven objects that descend from the arches and land on the floor. Launched into this space, a man is submitted to a series of ludicrous acts dictated by the objects – acts that switch between falling and taking off, success or failure, the possible or the impossible. One by one, a thirtysomething circus actor, Tsirihaka Harrivel, and a dancer in his eighties, Dominique Dupuy, are the mute actors of these acts; their differences in age and gestural language generate two interpretations of the piece, which follow on from each other with a change of register. There is no ending, whether happy or unhappy: the only thing that counts are the acts to be carried out, where the acutely elaborate gestures take precedence over absent words. A mid point between his great early pieces and those he produced later, ‘Acte Sans Paroles 1’ (Act without words 1), through the radical nature of its dramaturgical choices, was a unique and prophetic piece in Beckett’s theatrical works that remains just as unique and remarkable in contemporary theatre.