Fragments

For theater at its most basic, you can't strip down much further than "Fragments," an hourlong sampling of existentialist angst and tearful comedy from Samuel Beckett. The five works that make up the program—I hesitate to call it an evening—are unadorned by scenery, elaborate lighting, or costumes. They consist of only one, two, or at the most three figures stumbling through a blank wasteland, attempting to make sense of a senseless existence. Directed sparely and with precision by the legendary Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne for Brook's CICT/Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord company, "Fragments" is so bare that every glance, gesture, and twitch of the three magnificent actors speaks volumes.

The first piece, "Rough for Theatre I," evokes Beckett's most famous play, "Waiting for Godot," with two destitute tramps, one blind and one missing a leg, clinging to each other for support. But unlike Estragon and Vladimir, the beggars in this short work don't even have the never-fulfilled promise of a Godot showing up to offer employment. As each attempts to make a connection with the other, he is met with violence and suspicion. Marcello Magni and Jos Houben capture the heartbreaking and hilarious aspects of these two wayfarers on the cruel highway of life. These tragic clowns must laugh at themselves and each other to keep from breaking down entirely.

Tiny Kathryn Hunter then enters for "Rockaby," in which a lonely woman listens to her own recorded voice as she contemplates the end of her life while pitching back and forth in a rocking chair, until she finally stops, signaling her demise. In the original text, the only word spoken by the character is "more," repeated four times. Brook and Estienne instead have Hunter recite the poetic, repetitive monologue out loud in her rich, gravelly voice, with "more" interjected. Plus she sits in a straight-backed chair, not a rocker. She only rocks at the very end, which makes for a powerful statement. In this staging, the woman seems more in control of her fate and makes a definite choice to end her suffering.

Magni and Houben return for "Act Without Words II," a hilarious mimed variation on their earlier encounter. Here they are nameless everyman figures, prodded to emerge from huge plastic sacks by an arrow descending from the flies, perhaps representing God. Each goes through a routine of the mundane tasks that make up most people's daily lives—dressing, eating, earning a living—one performing his routine with pained resignation, the other with joyful relish. As the sorrowful silent figure, Magni twists his mobile features into a grotesque grimace of agony, while Houben delivers a riotous caricature of simplistic optimism.

Hunter is up next in another solo piece, "Neither," which substitutes walking for the rocking of "Rockaby" as a physical expression of filling the time until a useless and unendurable life is finally exhausted. The program ends with the full company in "Come and Go," in which Flo, Vi, and Ru, a trio of elderly women friends, gossip about each other and then join hands as they did when they were schoolgirls. Like the tramps in the first play, the women huddle together despite their petty differences because they would be more miserable alone.

In all five pieces, Brook and Estienne distill to its bare essence Beckett's vision of mankind as a lonely animal seeking solace from its fellow creatures, delivering a devastatingly honest and unfettered look at ourselves.
 
Presented by Theatre for a New Audience, in association with the Baryshnikov Arts Center, at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, 450 W. 37th St., NYC. Nov. 13–Dec. 4. Tue.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Wed. and Sat., 2 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m. (No performance Thu., Nov. 24.) (212) 352-3101, (866) 811-4111, www.theatermania.com, or www.tfna.org.