TEHRAN-The play “Act Without Words II” by Samuel Beckett is currently on stage at Molavi Theater Hall in Tehran.

The 45-minute play is translated and directed by Elham Iravani. She also performs in the play along with Sonya Esmaeeli.

Written in the late 1950s, it is a short mime by Beckett, his second after “Act Without Words I”. Like many of his works, the piece was originally composed in French, then translated into English by Beckett himself. 

“Act Without Words II” has the focused intensity of the best of Beckett’s theater. A mime featuring two protagonists, A and B, it delineates the routines of life circumscribed within the movement from daybreak to dusk. 

In the short one-act mime, the two characters, who are opposites in pace and personality, are prodded and provoked by a goad to do different actions.

The play presents two individuals emerging in turn from sacks when a poking device goads them into action. They never meet, but are mutually engaged insofar as one’s most important task is to move the other, cocooned inside sack, a little further away from the goad in one cycle in a longer struggle that we do not witness.

“Act Without Words II” will remain on stage till October 22 at Molavi Theater Hall located at No. 16, 16th Azar St., Enqelab St.

SS/SAB