Theatre / Performance

Beckett: Lieben 2026 – Play and Come and Go

Everyman Theatre, 5-11 Hope Street, Liverpool

Thu 17 Sept · 19:00 · £15

20m · Theatre

About this event

As part of the Beckett: Lieben 2026 Biennale, Unreal Cities present a double bill of Samuel Beckett’s Play and Come and Go. Play (1962/63) was originally written by Samuel Beckett in English and was first performed (as Spiel) at Theater Ulm in June 1963. It was published in German in July of the same year. The fate of three characters, who find themselves trapped in three urns with only their heads showing, is forever sealed by an affair in the past. Their constant remembering might indeed seem an understandable obsession were it not for the on/off light of the unseen interrogator – dictating who speaks, and when. Come and Go is a short play described as a “dramaticule” on its title page, dedicated to publisher John Calder. It was written in English in January 1965 and was first performed in German at the Schiller Theater Werkstatt, Berlin in January 1966. Critics consider this one of Beckett’s most “perfect” plays. Beckett himself proposed the pairing to director Walter D. Asmus in Germany and they presented the double-bill together at the Schiller Theater in West Berlin in 1977, with Beckett directing Play and Asmus directing Come and Go. The Unreal Cities Lieben 2026 production is directed by Adrian Dunbar, featuring actors Clara Simpson, Anna Nygh, Orla Charlton, Frank McCusker, with lighting director Michael Cummins. Presented as part of Beckett: Lieben 2026 , an international festival celebrating the works of Dublin-born writer Samuel Beckett, in Liverpool from 17-20 September. Picture credit: Renáta Sinclair