Cascando by Pan Pan Theatre is an outdoor experience, transforming Samuel Beckett's 1963 radio play into a physical journey. Directed by Gavin Quinn, the production leads the audience on a rhythmic ensemble experience, wearing black cloaks and headphones and becoming part of the spectacle.
In this version, Irish actors Andrew Bennett (as Voice) and Daniel Reardon (as Opener) lead the audience through a series of atmospheric landscapes. The play’s slow, deliberate pace mirrors the struggle of Voice, who is caught between trying to finish a story and the impossibility of completing it. The absence of performers other than the two actors creates an eerie feeling of isolation, making the audience feel like they, too, are part of Beckett’s wandering narrative.
Pan Pan’s adaptation emphasises the themes of uncertainty and existential struggle present in Beckett’s original work. The vast outdoors, paired with Jimmy Eadie’s intense sound design, allows the audience to experience the piece as an immersive reflection on the futility of progress, much like Beckett's original radio play. Pan Pan’s Cascando blurs the line between performer and spectator, inviting the audience to walk alongside Beckett’s characters in a contemplative pilgrimage.
With no visual performers other than voices, the performance uses space, sound and movement, and atmosphere to engage the audience in a reflective exploration of memory, time and isolation, offering a deeply personal experience in the immensity of our reality through the embodiment.
This is a collection of taxonomy terms that allow a type of immersive or XR performance to be categorised.