From the jury’s report:
“In ACT Johan Leysen shapes one of Beckett's most elusive characters in an inimitable way. For an hour you hang on the lips of a man who gets hopelessly entangled in his attempt to define himself and the world around him. A moving portrait of Western human beings in search of sense and meaning.”
ACT
A Beckett evening
In ACT, Kris Verdonck explores various aspects of human existence on the verge of disappearing in the work of Samuel Beckett. ACT approaches Beckett in three ways: first, a monologue with Beckett texts, Texts for nothing, performed by Johan Leysen. This monologue is accompanied by a new performative installation, MASS #2, a possible landscape for a Beckett text. A video lecture by philosopher and mathematician Jean Paul Van Bendegem is the third part of this Beckett evening, and sketches how throughout the history of Western thinking the unity between body, mind and spirit fell apart. The triptych of theatre, installation and philosophy shows, as in three acts, each time a different facet of the diamond ‘Beckett’. They deepen each other’s experience: a particular way of performing brings a a way of thinking to life and vice versa, a performative landscape zooms in on the underlying world of or perhaps after the actor and offers a more contemplative experience.