ALL THAT FALL DEC 20—21, 2012 BAM Fisher By Samuel Beckett Pan Pan Theatre Company Study Guide Written by Nicole Kempskie BAM PETER JAY SHARP BUILDING 30 LAFAYETTE AVE. BROOKLYN, NY 11217 All That Fall Table Of Contents Dear Educator Your Visit to BAM Page 3 Behind the Scenes Welcome to the study guide for the The BAM program includes: this study production All That Fall that you and guide, a pre-performance workshop in Page 4 Samuel Beckett your students will be attending as part your classroom led by a BAM teaching Page 5 The Magic of Radio of BAM Education’s Live Performance artist, and the performance (December Page 6 Radio Drama Components Series. At this unique performance, 20-21; 100 minutes). Page 7—8 The Play in Context you and your students will sit in rock- ing chairs and listen to Samuel Beckett’s Page 9 Words, Words, Words radio play All That Fall, an immersive Page 10 Thematic Elements auditory experience recorded in Dublin How to Use this Guide Page 11 Curriculum Connections and directed by Gavin Quinn. Recreating the atmosphere of listening to the radio Arts experiences, such as the one you communally, with lighting that progresses have chosen to attend at BAM, always slowly from sunlight to moonlight and work best when themes, ideas, and stars, students will get to engage their elements from the performance can be imagination and intellect in an active aligned to your pre-existing classroom way, as they co-create the world of learning. This guide has been created Beckett’s play. In addition, this experience to do just that by providing you with can serve as an impetus to investigate background information to help you the musicality of Beckett’s writing—his prepare your students for their experience masterful use of language, silence, and at BAM. Depending on your needs, you sound, and his ability to seamlessly blend may choose to use certain sections that them into a compelling, enigmatic and directly pertain to your class exploration evocative dramatic experience. or the guide in its entirety. In addition, at the end of this guide you will find sug- gested classroom activities and ideas that you can implement before or after seeing the production. The overall goals of this guide are: to connect to your curriculum with standards-based information and activities, to reinforce and encourage critical thinking and analytical skills, and to provide you and your students with the tools and background informa- tion necessary to have an engaging, educational, and inspiring experience at BAM. “Pan Pan provides an experience that is genuinely different from anything you’ll have encountered in the theatre before…Under Gavin Quinn’s direction, the company also provides an excellent perfor- mance of the play—perhaps even an exemplary one” — Irish Theatre Magazine Introduction2 “This tension is perfectly judged — it is not enough to distract from the fine performances and Beckett’s bleakly funny text, but it is enough to justify the whole idea of listening to them inside a controlled and designed environment.” Fintan O’Toole, The Irish Times BEHIND THE SCENES The Company concerned with breathing in and out and Synopsis attend the task of making theatre perfor- mances that I am engaged in, without The play begins with Maddy Rooney on PAN PAN THEATRE COMPANY being lascivious nor affected nor posing what seems to be a long and arduous Since Pan Pan was established by for the audience. For the past fifteen years journey to the train station to meet her co-directors Gavin Quinn and Aedín I have mainly collaborated with the de- blind husband Dan, whom she will walk Cosgrove, the company has constantly signer Aedín Cosgrove under the working back home. As she travels along she examined the nature of its work and has name of Pan Pan. passes the time with a number of local resisted settling into formulas. Developing characters: Christy, a dung carrier; Mr. new performance ideas is at the center of The theatre that Pan Pan creates is of a Tyler, a retired broker who is riding by on the company’s raison d’être which is born contemporary attitude with a lot of per- his bicycle and is almost hit by a passing from a desire to be individual and provide sonal feelings attached. van; and Mr. Slocum, a clerk from the innovation in the development of theater racehorses who gives Maddy a ride to the art. All the works created are original, Pan Pan is willing to use any language of station. At the station Maddy converses either through the writing (original plays) the theatre to express an intended mean- with more of the locals as she waits for or through the totally unique expression ing. Conventions, attitudes, and barriers Dan’s train, which seems to be delayed. of established writings. Pan Pan tries to that are both psychological and physical Eventually the train arrives and Maddy approach theater as an open form of are always limiting performance. Pan Pan and Dan begin their labored trip home. expression and has developed an individ- tries to approach theatre as an open form Dan refuses to tell Maddy why the train ual aesthetic that has grown from making of expression. Pan Pan has developed an was delayed, despite her nagging. Jerry, performances in a host of different situa- individual aesthetic that has simply grown a small boy who helped Dan off the train, tions and conditions. Pan Pan is commit- from making performances in a host of runs after the two to return something ted to presenting performances nationally different situations and conditions. Dan dropped. Jerry tells Dan and Maddy and internationally and developing links that the train was delayed because a for co-productions and collaborations. We work on the exploration of new forms, young child fell out of the carriage and The company has toured in Ireland, UK, new approaches, and experiments with onto the tracks. Europe, USA, Canada, Korea, Australia, time, space, music, and performance. New Zealand, and China. Our objective has always been to be idio- syncratic, to find the individual step. The Setting The Production There are primary characteristics to A rural village in Ireland All That Fall is a radio play written by our work: authenticity of the performer, Samuel Beckett which was first broadcast humility of purpose, the world as a place in 1957. Throughout his lifetime, Beckett of chaos and disorder full of oppositions, The Characters insisted that the play never be performed conflicts and complexities of existence. live, asserting that he specifically wrote it for the radio. Pan Pan, by presenting the —Gavin Quinn Maddy Rooney (Maddy) play in its true form—a radio recording in A woman in her seventies which audience members sit in rocking Christy A dung carrier chairs and listen—has found a way to Mr. Tyler A retired bill-broker share Beckett’s masterful radio play with The Cast Mr. Slocum Clerk of the Racehorse theater audiences without dishonoring Tommy A porter Andrew Bennett, Phelim Drew, Beckett’s intentions for the piece. Mr. Barrell Train station-master John Kavanagh, Áine Ní Mhuirí, Robbie Miss Fitt A woman in her thirties A WORD FROM THE DIRECTOR: O’Connor, Joey O’Sullivan, David Pearse, A Female Voice I began making theatre when I was five Daniel Reardon, and Judith Roddy Dolly A small girl years old in the back garden of the house, Dan Rooney Husband of Mrs. Rooney, where I grew up in Dublin. My first works blind involved choreographing my sisters to Jerry A small boy the relevant pop music of the time. Circa 1974. I suppose even then I wanted to be a boy/man of my time. To be simply Introduction3 SAMUEL BECKETT Samuel Barclay Beckett was born on championed his works and is attributed Selected Works Good Friday, April 13th, 1906 in Foxrock, with getting his first plays produced. Dur- ing WWII, the two worked for the French Ireland, a well-to-do suburb of Dublin. Dramatic Works Resistance and were forced to flee to the The younger of two sons, Beckett was Eleutheria (1940) South of France, where Beckett would very close to his affectionate father, but Waiting for Godot (1953) spend his days as a farm laborer and his had a troubled relationship with his Act Without Words I (1956) evenings writing his second novel, Watt. overbearing mother. This conflicted Endgame (1957) relationship would find its way into Krapp’s Last Tape (1958) It was during this time period, the pre- Beckett’s writing later in life. Happy Days (1961) and post-war years and after the death Play (1963) of James Joyce, that Beckett was most Growing up, Beckett was both a strong Come and Go (1965) prolific and where he truly found and student, known for his intellectual rigor, Breath (1969) developed his unique voice. John and a gifted athlete, excelling at both Not I (1972) Banville wrote in the New York Review cricket and rugby. He received his B.A. That Time (1975) of Books that: in Modern Literature (French and Italian) Footfalls (1975) from Dublin’s prestigious Trinity College. A Piece of Monologue (1980) “It is certain that Beckett did undergo It was here he became engrossed in the Rockaby (1981) some kind of profound realization of the great French authors of the time such as Catastrophe (1982) artistic path that he must take. He would Proust, Gide, Larbaud, and the playwright What Where (1983) Racine, as well as the Italian Renaissance allow “the dark” into his work, the chaos, pain, and painful comedy of existence as writer, Dante, and the great German phi- Radio he experienced it, and thereby make a losophers.