| Endgame Watching a Beckett play can be an uncomfortable experience. His "theatre of the absurd" gives the audience none of the usual theatrical staples of passionate romance or cut-and-thrust swordfighting - in fact, it doesn't even do you the favour of a discernible beginning, middle or end. Endgame is more of a minimalist study of "the end" itself, and the course of human life that precedes it; but even that summary misleadingly ascribes too much structure to a play that is essentially plotless. The playwright's trademark is his talent as a wordsmith, and it is his impressively clever dialogue and the philosophy behind it that is trusted to hold the audience's interest. Tonight it does, thanks in no small part to the great performances by Will Fysh and Sam Thomas as the two central characters, Clov and Hamm. The stage is swathed in white cloth, an effect that is simple but effective in evoking an empty expanse that exemplifies the strange and unrecognisable world that Beckett presents, and amplifies the meaninglessness that is the essential theme of the play. Hamm, a blind invalid, and Clov, his frustrated surrogate son and put-upon servant, exist in the prison of Hamm's house, from which they occasionally peer out through the windows at the desolate world outside. There appear to be no other people alive in their world, except Hamm's elderly parents who live, inexplicably, in two sand-filled barrels (an impressive feat for the actors who endured two hours cooped up inside them, only occasionally emerging to add some light-hearted conversation to the proceedings). They talk of happy memories in their past, in stark contrast to the interplay between the other two characters which centres around the meaninglessness of life and the tedium of waiting for life to end, waiting to become 'a speck in the void, in the dark forever'. As Clov, Will Fysh adopts a physical posture that reflects the play's theme of waiting and hesitation - taut and rigid when he's standing still - as well as the invisible weight imposed by an eternity of meeting every capricious whim of the comically tyrannical Hamm, depicted in his laboured, stooped hunch. It's a well-judged performance, and the interplay between these two characters is equally convincing, capturing both the intense friction as well as the moments of some kind of love between the two. They share moments of quiet sadness at the futility of their lives, and when Clov finally manages to escape from his prison there is a real poignancy at his departure. But these morbid themes do not overshadow the comic tendencies of Beckett's writing, and there is plenty of laughter from the audience at the moments of absurdity and inanity in the play - like Clov's observation that "things are livening up!" when he's preparing to look out of the window with a telescope to check on the weather. On this evidence, Endgame is a play to be enjoyed, but with a warning about the potentially irritating self-consciousness of it all - it is not a rip-roaring evening's entertainment that will sweep you along in its stride, but an experience that will prompt you to think "what am I supposed to be thinking about this?", while you're actually watching it. Challenging, then, but not absurdly so, and this particular production deserves your attention. Alison Gowland |