The Kennedy Center Will Present FRAGMENTS Plays, 4/14-17

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts presents C.I.C.T./Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord's production of Fragments running April 14 to 17 in the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater. Co-directed by Peter Brook and Marie Hélène Estienne, Fragments brings together four short plays by Samuel Beckett including Rough for Theatre I, Rockaby, Act Without Words II, Come and Go, as well as the poem, Neither. Press night will take place on Thursday, April 14 at 7:30 p.m.

Created in French at Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris in October 2006 with Jos Houben, Marcello Magni, and Geneviève Mnich, Fragments was revived in English with Jos Houben, Kathryn Hunter, and Marcello Magni at the Young Vic Theatre in London in September 2007. The performance consists of a collection of five short texts written by Samuel Beckett, each written independently of the other and featuring an added fifth text entitled Neither, specially chosen by Brook. The acclaimed production caps career of over 60 years, wherein the legendary director's work and that of the late playwright's often intermingled.

Rough for Theater I is a one-act theatrical sketch in which a blind man and a disabled man team up, pooling their abilities to advance through the world. Throughout the short play, their union becomes increasingly questionable and their loneliness becomes more pronounced.

The one woman play, Rockaby is a performance poem on life and death. Throughout the play, a woman, dressed in a black evening gown and seated in a wooden rocking chair, listens to a pre-recorded voice recounting her and her dead mother's life story.

Act Without Words II is a short mime play revolving around two men in sacks and their efforts to avoid a long pole. Reminiscent of Shakespeare's three witches at the beginning of Macbeth, Come and Go features three women seated side-by-side on a narrow bench. The women make uneasy small talk. Each woman takes a turn leaving the group during which one woman whispers a secret to another about the third. The play repeats this act allowing each woman to occupy the center position on the bench and each to learn a secret about one of the others. At 87 words, Neither is a very short poem by Samuel Beckett that deals with the ethereal concept of the word, "neither."

The production will be performed in English with a cast that features Hayley Carmichael, and long time Brook collaborators Bruce Myers, and Yoshi Oïda. Fragments features lighting design by Philippe Vialatte.

ARTIST BIOS:

Co-director Peter Brook was born in London in 1925 and directed his first play there in 1943. He then went on to direct over 70 productions in London, Paris, and New York. His work with the Royal Shakespeare Company includes Love's Labour's Lost, Measure for Measure, Titus Andronicus, King Lear, Marat/Sade, US, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Antony and Cleopatra. In 1971, he founded the International Centre for Theatre Research in Paris and in 1974, opened its permanent base in the Bouffes du Nord Theatre. There, he directed Timon of Athens, The Ik, Ubu aux Bouffes, Conference of the Birds, L'Os, The Cherry Orchard, The Mahabharata, Woza Albert!, The Tempest, The Man Who, Qui est là?, O! les Beaux Jours, Je suis un Phénomène, Le Costume, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Far Away, La Mort de Krishna, Ta Main dans la Mienne, Le Grand Inquisiteur, Tierno Bokar, Sizwe Banzi is dead, Fragments, Warum Warum (performed in German), Eleven and Twelve - many of these performing both in French and English. In opera, he directed La Bohème, Boris Godounov, The Olympians, Salomé, and Le nozze de Figaro at Covent Garden; Faust and Eugene Onegin at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York; La tragédie de Carmen and Impressions of Pelleas at the Bouffes du Nord, Paris; and Don Giovanni for the Aix en Provence Festival. He presented The Magic Flute by W. A. Mozart at the Bouffes du Nord in November 2010. Peter Brook's autobiography, Threads of Time, was published in 1998 and joins other titles including The Empty Space - translated into over 15 languages, The Shifting Point, Evoking (and Forgetting) Shakespeare, and There are No Secrets. His films include Lord of the Flies, Marat/Sade, King Lear, Moderato Cantabile, Tell me Lies, The Mahabharata, and Meetings with Remarkable Men.

Co-director Marie-Hélène Estienne has taken part in many theater and cinema projects as author and production assistant. While a journalist at Le Nouvel Observateur and Les Nouvelles Littéraires, she became Michel Guy's assistant, working on the programming of the Paris Festival d'Automne. In 1974 she worked on the casting of Peter Brook's Timon of Athens. She joined C.I.C.T. in 1977 for Ubu aux Bouffes and has since been production assistant for the Centre's work. She was also Brook's assistant for La Tragédie de Carmen and The Mahabharata and artistic collaborator for The Tempest, Impressions de Pelléas, and more recently The Tragedy of Hamlet in 2000. This collaboration developed to include dramaturgy for Woza Albert !, The Man Who, and Qui est là ?. She co-authored, with Peter Brook, Je suis un Phénomène, presented at Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in 1998. She produced the French language adaptation of Le Costume ("The Suit") by Can Themba, created in 1999 at Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord as well as Far away, by Caryl Churchill in 2002. She collaborates to the directing and signs together with Jean Claude Carrière the texts for La Tragédie d'Hamlet in 2002 and La Mort de Krishna. She recently worked on the French adaptation of Ta main dans la mienne by Carol Rocamora, signed in 2003 the theatrical adaptation of Le Grand Inquisiteur by Dostoïevski, and in 2004, Tierno Bokar from Amadou Hampaté Bâ's works. Most recently, she adapted the play Sizwe Banzi is dead by Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona into French.

Born in Croydon in England, actress Hayley Carmichael is co-founder of the company Told By An Idiot and has both devised and performed in almost all their productions. Their most recent productions have been The Fahrenheit Twins at the Barbican London, and Comedy of Errors with the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1999 she won the TMA (Theatrical Management Association) and the Barclays Theatre Best Actress Award for her performances in I Weep at my Piano, The Dispute, and Mr. Puntila and his Man Matti. She also won the Time Out Best Actress Award for I Weep at my Piano and The Dispute. Other theater credits include: Sweet Nothings with the Young Vic, Bliss with the Royal Court, The Firework Maker's Daughter with the Sheffield Crucible, Theatre of Blood, Street of Crocodile, The Birds with the National Theatre, Cymbeline with the Royal Shakespeare Company/Kneehigh, Mother Courage with the Shared Experience, King Lear with the Young Vic, and Gormenghast with the David Glass Ensemble. On television, she was seen in Garrows Law, Tunnel of Love, Life's a Bitch And So Am I, and The Bill. For film, she acted in The Emperor's New Clothes, National Achievement Day, Simon Magus, and Anazapta.

Born in England, actor Bruce Myers studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art before working at the Liverpool Everyman. In 1968 he became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company which he left in 1970 to join the International Centre of Theatre Research created in Paris by Peter Brook. He took part in all the theater adventures of the Centre. Memorable journeys followed each other: Iran, Orghast for the Festival of Shiraz; crossing Africa from Algiers to Lagos; a long stay in California working with Luis Valdez's Teatro Campesino followed by workshops in New York at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music. In this way he became a part of CICT (International Centre of Theatre Creations) founded by Peter Brook in 1974. He has participated in nearly all the productions created at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord including Timon of Athens, The Iks, Ubu aux Bouffes, Measure for Measure, The Conference of the Birds, The Mahabharata, The Tempest, The Man Who, Je suis un phénomène, Hamlet, and Tierno Bokar. For nearly three years, from 2005 to 2008, he went around the world touring with a solo performance created by Peter Brook: The Grand Inquisitor (after Brothers Karamazov by Dostoievski), and in 2009, Love is My Sin created by Peter Brook. He recently played George Soros in The Power of Yes at the National. He wrote and directed Dybbuk. He also directed The Well of the Saints in 1992. For film, he played Krishna in the screen version of The Mahabharata. He also appeared in Présumé dangereux in 1990 by Georges Lautner, Disparus in 1998 by Gilles Bourdos, and made three films with Michel Deville including Eaux profondes in 1981, Toutes peines confondues in 1992, and Un monde presque paisible in 1997. He made two films with Philip Kaufman including The Unbearable Lightness of Being in 1987 and Henry & June in 1990. For several years Bruce Myers has directed workshops with students and young actors. The last projects took place in Rome, Turin, and Prato. He was awarded an Obie and a Time Out award for Dybbuk, and was made a Chevalier des Arts et Lettres in 1991.

Actor Yoshi Oïda was born in 1933 in Kobe, Japan and was trained in Japanese traditional theater, where one develops self-expression through movement, bodily exercise, and spiritual technique. In 1968, as recommended by Jean-Louis Barrault, Yoshi Oïda joined Peter Brook in his project resulting later in the experimental version of The Tempest performed at the Round House in London. In 1970 he became a member of Peter Brook's newly founded center, the International Centre of Theatre Research, based at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris. Following the example of Bruce Myers, he became one of Peter Brook's favorite interpreters. In 1971, he performed in Orghast, a saga performed in Persepolis in Iran. Then in 1972 he traveled to Africa, a journey which resulted in the first version of The Conference of the Birds in 1973, later adapted by Jean-Claude Carrière and directed by Peter Brook presented at the Avignon Festival in 1979. Since that time he has been seen in a number of other productions directed by Peter Brook, notably Les Iks, Le Mahabharata, La Tempête, L'Homme qui, Qui est là?, and Tierno Bokar. In 2003, invited by Joseph Nadj, he performed in Il n'y a plus de firmament, a production of the Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne. He appeared in Jossy Wieler's Yotsuya Kaidan in 2005 and an adaptation of Junichiro Tanizaki's novel, Shun-Kin directed by Simon McBurney in 2008. Yoshi Oïda has also directed a number of productions including Hannya Shingyo written by Shogo Ota and Takuro Endo, Amé Tsuchi for the Festival d'Automne in Paris, Interrogations at the Festival d'Avignon, The Tibetan Book of Dead, The Divine Comedy, The Walk of the Cameleon, The Guide of the other World, Madame de Sade, End Game, and The Misunderstanding. In opera, he has worked on productions including Curlew River by Benjamin Britten, The Nightingale by Stravinsky, and recently Don Giovanni by Mozart. Yoshi Oïda is also known as an author whose works have been read in many countries all over the world, notably his trilogy L'acteur flottant, L'acteur invisible, and L'acteur ruse. He has received two renowned distinctions in the arts including Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 1992 and Officier des Arts et des Lettres.

TICKET INFORMATION
Performances for Fragments run in the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater on April 14, 15, and 16 at 7:30 p.m. and April 16 and 17 at 1:30 p.m. Tickets range from $25-$85 and can be purchased online at kennedy-center.org or by calling Instant Charge at (202) 467-4600. Patrons living outside the Washington metropolitan area may dial toll-free at (800) 444-1324.

 

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