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Clarence Tsui

Fragments
American Repertory Theatre
Studio Theatre
Hong Kong Cultural Centre
Reviewed:  Feb 15
So much for Samuel Beckett being caricatured as a ceaseless pessimist: Peter Brook's Fragments, comprising five short plays by the Irish playwright, reveals Beckett's comic intuition.
Act Without Words II, a mime about the daily routine of two men living in sacks, thrives on the ability of actors  Jos Houben (below) and Marcello Magni to conjure some funny moments from the reactions of an optimist and a pessimist towards life.
In Come and Go,  Houben, Magni and  Kathryn Hunter  are three ageing women  on a park bench who take turns  telling each other an inaudible secret  while the  third party leaves her seat briefly,  calling for a mix of deadpan expressions and a rhythm for comedy.
But there's more to Fragments than just a showcase of the more light-hearted moments in the Beckett canon. Brook has managed to channel some of the  important themes underlining the writer's work. There's the reflection on the ambiguity of human existence.
In Neither, for instance, Hunter recites prose about the penetrable and non-penetrable selves.
And beneath the comic timing of Come and Go lies the three women's apprehension of death.    Rockaby  ends with the aged protagonist giving up on the state of her mortal existence by saying, 'F*** life'.
Finally, there's  a debate on divinity: the repeated mention of God is highlighted at the end of Act Without Words II, when Magni's long-suffering bum kneels and prays for benediction so he can face yet another day of misfortune.
It's all down to the cast and Brook's directorial flair that so much is packed into these five  plays, and Fragments is an effective pointer - if not primer - to Beckett's works and the themes to which he kept returning.
Fragments provides as sharp a Beckett vehicle as there could be.



Fragments