|
|
 |
|
Written by
Samuel Beckett
Directed by
Matthew Warchus
Cast
Hamm
Michael Gambon
Clov
Lee Evans
Nagg
Geoffrey Hutchings
Nell
Liz Smith
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Albery
Theatre
25 February
- 8 May 2004 |
|
The power of
words like absurd, alienation, and nihilism
has been dulled by promiscuous repetition.
They seem either dated or exhausted
or clichid. In the hands of a master
playwright like Samuel Beckett, however,
they at once become compelling and essential.
They denote terrifying, yet liberating,
experiences of a world in which there
seem to be no stable or unquestionable
standards by which we decide what is
a good life to live and how best to
attain it.
Endgame,
Beckett's second play, forces one to
submit to such experiences, however
much one might (wish to) repudiate the
author's conviction that existence is
unalterably absurd. The stage is set
literally by Clov's opening dramatic
action, brilliantly performed by Lee
Evans, in which this deranged, shambolic,
yet strangely aware, character slowly,
but incompletely, unveils to himself
and so to the audience the essential
features of the stage. First, two windows,
which can be reached only by a ladder,
and which embody the character's very
restricted view of the outside world;
then two bins from which he lifts the
sheets (and in which, we later learn,
Hamm's mother and father live); and,
finally, Clov's blind, bullying master,
Hamm.
Michael
Gambon's Hamm sits centre-stage in regal,
yet desperate, splendour. He is like
a Lear, cursing a life and world over
which he is ultimately neither willing
nor able to be master tyrannizing Clov
who, at the plays end, he dismisses,
much as he has already dismissed the
world. Gambon's presence has something
mighty about it, and at the same time,
unbearably restricting which makes him
perfectly suited to the role. Confined
to his wheelchair, unable to see anything,
he largely acts with his voice, which
alternates between booming commands
as if he were a god issuing instructions
to Creation and furious despair.
Hamm's
parents, Nagg and Nell, are less convincingly
performed. Geoffrey Hutchings and Liz
Smith cut a slightly affected presence
as they peer out of their dustbins on
their son's orders or else to see what
crumbs of comfort and recognition life
has to offer them. Their clownish performance
is unsuited to the extraordinary circumstances
of their lives, confined as they are
to their separate claustrophobic nightmares,
placed just too far from one another
even to kiss.
Simon May |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
