Pan Pan Theatre's Cascando by Samuel Beckett
The Celtic Club is excited to welcome Pan Pan Theatre, the international theatre company based in Dublin, for a unique immersive experience as they tour Australia this February. Step into the world of Samuel Beckett, as Pan Pan transforms his 1963 radio play Cascando into a powerful street-walk theatre experience.
Cloaked in darkness and guided by sound, audiences move together through an immersive, rhythmic journey where words, music and movement collide. Wearing headphones, participants are led through a choreographed walk that blurs the line between spectator and performer, drawing them into Beckett’s haunting meditation on voice, silence and the struggle to complete a story.
Visceral, poetic and deeply absorbing, Pan Pan’s Cascando invites you to walk alongside Beckett’s curious figures into an uncertain future.
**BOOK TODAY! 3 shows daily across Friday 6th, Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th February.***
Guest are asked to arrive on time for their schedule start.
Welcome and introductory speech on arrival for getting into your attire (cloaks/headphones).
Each performance walks for 30 minutes departing from and returning to the Celtic Club, Wild Geese Hotel, 29 Sydney Road Brunswick.
International Reviews:
“A remarkable achievement from the Irish company, who thrive on new and startling performance ideas”
Lou Reviews
“Lifted from the familiarity of ‘normal vision and sound,’ one’s imagination and reason collide until there is a fusion between both.” Sean Hillen, Examiner
“Wonderfully inventive”
West end best friend
Credits:
Director – Gavin Quinn
Designer – Aedín Cosgrove
Sound Design and Music – Jimmy Eadie
Dramaturg – Nicholas Johnson
Opener – Daniel Reardon (Voice Recording)
Voice – Andrew Bennett (Voice Recording)
About the Production:
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 recognise 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”.