Beckett's work has been presented in a variety of forms ranging from theatre, to radio plays and film. His work scales from the lengthy Waiting for Godot which comprises of two acts, followed with a long journey through the radio creation of "All that Fall," to the fragment of life represented in Breath with comprises of a brief cry and the slow inspiration and exhalation of breath. The means in which the performance is presented is diverse, yet the drama never fails to follow the bleak, desolate characteristics of all of Beckett's late work. The characters rarely fail to live out a hopeless existence in a play that ends with no resolution. In Beckett's work the "people always seem to be falling to bits,"(Beckett) searching for something to put significance into their meaningless lives. In Beckett's late plays of course, this does not occur, due to the cyclical repetitive style in which the characters lives are portrayed as passing time until death. .
Act Without Words II contemplates the forces that drive man and are beyond his control. From the presentation, which is performed in mime, we see man determined by a compulsive force to live that rarely allows him to withdraw from action. The goad, rousing A and B's sacks represents this compulsion. A and B appear to represent a complete picture of man, A being slow and awkward whilst B being brisk and businesslike. A's reluctance of activity is suggested by the need for the goad to poke twice to awaken him. A's day outside the sack is performed with habitual apathy. Between every action he pauses "halts, broods, prays, broods, gets to his feet, broods" merely to pass time. The moments of fracture in A's performance give an incompleteness to the character and his life, as though parts are missing. .
In contrast, B awakes with the first goad, carries out his pointless tasks with enthusiasm, "chews and swallows with appetite" absorbed by his own duties and orienting himself precisely around space and time.
