“Sometimes I wonder if I'm in my right senses. Then it passes off, and I'm as intelligent as ever.”
Samuel Beckett’s "Endgame," currently playing at the Irish Arts Center under the superb direction of Garry Hynes and featuring mainstays of Galway’s Druid Theatre ensemble, allows audiences to find the joy Beckett tries so hard to hide in his grim existential experiences. The openings of his plays typically pause to let the audience sense that something different is about to happen in a surreal, otherworldly setting—something different and, in this performance, wonderful.
"Endgame" features a blind, immobile man, Hamm (Rory Nolan), tended to by his shuffling servant, Clov (Aaron Monaghan), while the sightless one barks insults and existential questions. Hamm’s parents, Nagg (Bosco Hogan) and Nell (Marie Mullen), also appear, popping up for brief moments from inside trash bins.
The four-actor cast perfectly captures the clever contradictions in Beckett’s work. One must pay close attention to the words, because humor arrives unexpectedly. “Nothing is funnier than unhappiness.” “If I don't kill that rat he'll die.”
In spite of the existential view of the human condition’s tragedy, there is comedy—albeit gallows humor. And that is Beckett’s genius. There must be some hope or relief from the dreariness of life—even if the life portrayed is the playwright’s own creation. “All life long the same inanities.”
Bosco Hogan and Marie Mullen in "Endgame" at the Irish Arts Center. (HanJie Chow)
In "Endgame," there are moments of unexpected slapstick, biblical references (a bloodied handkerchief described as a “stancher”), and exasperation from Clov, the overworked attendant. At one point, Clov even acknowledges that this is a performance, breaking the fourth wall: “I see... a multitude... in transports... of joy,” he says, looking at the audience through a telescope.
Grim? Yes. But what is this play about? Within the stark confines of a bare room with two round windows high on the stone wall—resembling eyes—the staging suggests the action may be taking place inside Hamm’s mind. Set design by Francis O’Connor. The characters accept that the end is near. Accept their situation. Accept that life can be painful. Accept that this too shall pass. Hamm notes: “Infinite emptiness will be all around you... all the resurrected dead of all the ages wouldn't fill it, and there you'll be like a little bit of grit in the middle of the steppe.”
Beckett has a well-earned reputation for seriousness, yet he often described his plays as tragicomedies. They are undeniably dark, but then his sly humor appears—joyfully—in the midst of a lament about the human condition or the slapstick fumblings of his characters.
For instance, Clov repeatedly moves a tall ladder from window to window at Hamm’s command. He climbs each rung tediously. Eventually, exhausted by the indecisive direction and physical strain, he begins to fake the sounds and motions of climbing—as if to say, Enough! His blind master is none the wiser.
In one joke, Nagg sprinkles the telling with sly asides while describing a tailor’s struggle to make a proper pair of trousers after three months’ effort: “Good, at a pinch, a smart fly is a stiff proposition.”
Aaron Monaghan and Rory Nolan in "Endgame" at the Irish Arts Center. (HanJie Chow)
As a Druid production, the cast is well-versed in the works of Irish playwrights like Beckett, O’Casey, and Synge. Leads Nolan and Monaghan excel at projecting the nuances of Beckett’s tragicomic voice. Nolan, in particular, is masterful in his ability to stop mid-rage, deliver a comic aside, and then resume his bombast. Hamm recalls: “Do you remember, in the beginning, when you took me for a turn? You used to hold the chair too high. At every step you nearly tipped me out. (With senile quaver.) Ah great fun we had, the two of us, great fun.”
"Endgame" again presents Beckett’s worldview, which is never a walk in the park. However, this Druid production captures the warmth of performing a good friend’s work. As the program notes: “It’s not theatre until someone’s watching.” This production is well worth watching and enjoying.
"Endgame" is running at the Irish Arts Center through November 23.
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