WHAT IS THE WORD is an audio cinematic experience presenting a curated collection of Samuel Beckett poems, performed by some of Ireland’s leading actors.

After a fall in his apartment in 1988, Samuel Beckett moved to the Tiers Temps nursing home in Paris, France. It was here that Beckett, aged 82, wrote ‘Comment dire’ in French. On the manuscript of his English translation, which he called ‘what is the word’ and is considered to be his final poem, he wrote: ‘Keep! for end’.

WHAT IS THE WORD grapples with the struggle to express, a theme present from Beckett’s early work but sharpened by his lived experience of illness. It offers an immersive sensory journey into some of Beckett’s most rarely performed works.

A Pan Pan production in collaboration with Cork Midsummer Festival, Poetry Ireland, Kilkenny Arts Festival, Irish Film Institute, and the Trinity Centre for Beckett Studies.

Supported by the Arts Council and Dublin City Council.

A unique collective experience [...] surpassed traditional artistic boundaries with their bold mix of theatre and cinema.

The University Times

Project Designers: Aedín Cosgrove, Ros Kavanagh, Gavin Quinn

Sound Design: Jimmy Eadie

Poetry Recordings:  Jimmy Eadie & Rachel Conlon

Dramaturg: Nicholas Johnson

Speakers: Andrew Bennett, Charlie Bonner, Des Cave, Ingrid Craigie, Ned Dennehy, Aoife Duffin, Olwen Fouéré, Áine Ní Mhuirí, Gina Moxley, Daniel Reardon and Judith Roddy

Executive Producer: Tríona Ní Dhuibhir

Producer: Emma Coen, Grace Morgan

Previous Presentations

MoLI - Museum of Literature Ireland 3 December 2021 - 27 February 2022

Kilkenny Arts Festival, Watergate Theatre 11 - 14 August 2021

Irish Film Institute 24 & 25 August 2021

Cinéma Les 3 Luxembourg, Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris 13 October 2020

Belfast International Arts Festival, Strand Arts Centre, Belfast 17 December 2020

Dublin Theatre Festival, Irish Film Institute 6 & 7 October 2020