In this mime Beckett presents a very simple, stylised study of the human condition. The playing area is a barren, searing prison. Man finds himself pitched into an intolerable existence over which he has no control and from which he can find no escape. Here, Beckett draws on Martin Heidegger’s philosophy of man’s basic existential condition. Heidegger posed the concept of ‘Geworfenheit’: the state of being ‘thrown’ or ‘flung’ into existence.

It is axiomatic that the suffering of human existence cannot be alleviated by any other condition, such as death. Simply making his own quietus by abandoning life’s stage or hanging himself from the bough of the tree or cutting his throat with the scissors may be tantalising temptations but are not available solutions.

‘Act Without Words 1’ was written immediately after ‘Waiting for Godot’ and ‘Endgame’. In stubbornly clinging to the hope that man’s predicament might be resolved, the mime inherits thinking from ‘Godot’. It draws also on ‘Endgame’ in achieving a consciousness of something taking its course to frustrate man’s attempts to effect any relief in his circumstance.

The futility and absurdity of endlessly pursuing illusions that man might experience satisfaction, happiness or peace also draws upon punishments meted out in the classical underworld of Hades. For his great sins, Sisyphus suffered the eternal punishment of perpetually having to roll a great boulder to the top of a hill, only to see it roll back down again every time he reached the top.
Similarly, Tantalus was condemned to unappeasable and everlasting thirst and hunger, standing in a lake that receded whenever he bent to drink, while overhead fruit-laden branches were tossed out of his grasp whenever he reached for them.

The ambiguity of the ending that Beckett characteristically offers leaves the man pathetically ‘staring before him’ as once more ‘he looks at his hands’, no longer turning aside to reflect. With what knowledge must he now go on? He does not move. The curtain falls.

The Beckett on Film director of ‘Act Without Words 1’, Karel Reisz, concludes:

'As always with Beckett, in the agony there is pity, understanding and humanity … Beckett was trying to make sense of his own experience of the world. Right or wrong doesn't come into it ... At the end, I would like audiences to experience recognition.'