As the crowd slowly filters in from the Gate Theatre’s bar to their seats, the excitement is palpable as the navy curtains hide the conventionally barren and grey Beckettian set of Broadway director Danya Taymor’s production of Endgame. The distant sound of birdsong and the crashing of waves lends a paradoxically hopeful note to the apocalyptic nihilism to come as the steward is met by strong applause at his announcement of finally being able to welcome a full house for opening night.
Enter Robert Sheehan as Clov, limping around the stage, who tonelessly utters “it must be nearly finished”, nailing the blind and stubborn optimism central to his character and focal to the tragicomic nature of Samuel Beckett’s masterpiece. As Sheehan makes his way offstage with extreme difficulty, Frankie Boyle slowly removes the soiled handkerchief covering his face to reveal the absurdly comic looking Hamm, wearing small futuristic black sunglasses and an orange knit cap. Yawning, Boyle ignorantly questions “can there be misery loftier than mine”, brilliantly setting the stage for his character’s domineering and irascible nature while perpetually ordering Clov around.
Reminiscent of its title, which refers to the final stage of a chess game, Sheehan and Boyle masterfully play off one another in their characters’ often nonsensical and sparse dialogue. Their clashing exchanges, filled with comic dialectic, are complicated through the production’s deliberate emphasis on the physicality of Beckett’s play. Indeed, despite being the only character able to move around the stage, Clov limps and stumbles around the stage, inducing uneasy laughter from the audience at the tragedy of his condition. Sheehan artfully renders this frustration through his clumsy and seemingly uncalculated movements, elucidating the intense struggle and fragmentation manifest in Clov at his servitude. This powerfully culminates in Sheehan’s beautifully indignant outburst against his master, violently exclaiming “teach me other [words,] or let me be silent”, which is excellently played down through Boyle’s discernible and omnipresent disinterest.
The one-act play is punctuated with interventions by Hamm’s parents, Nell and Nagg, incarnated by Gina Moxley and Seán McGinley respectively, from two dustbins at the left side of the stage. These two childlike figures bring playful comic relief to the audience in a reversal of parental roles. Their characters’ exuberant dynamic is exemplified in Nell’s deathly glare in direct opposition to Nagg’s disjointed storytelling and play fighting. This is intensified through both Boyle and Sheehan’s unnerving statuesque immobility throughout McGinley’s monologue, subsequently springing back to life in their dreary interior, enhanced through Sabine Dargent’s sparse and brutalist set design.
Taymor’s production breathes fresh air into the nihilistic setting of Endgame through its emphasis on the comic elements throughout, producing a steady stream of audience laughter, ranging from confident to uneasy at times due to its tragicomic genre. Indeed, Beckett’s tightly constructed dialogue which juxtaposes bleakly comic assertions, such as Clov’s plea that “if I could kill him I’d die happy” and the physical humour derived from Clov’s frenzied attempt to get a singular flea out of his overalls with powder insecticide.
The power of Boyle’s performance is epitomised in the play’s final moments, which enable him to fully embrace the character of Hamm following the slightly recited effect of his opening utterances. While Sheehan’s paced breakdown of Clov into desperation is potent, Boyle’s rendition of Hamm’s ultimate nihilism grounds the audience into the sense of an ending layered into Beckett’s prose. As Sheehan stands in the shadows, enhanced through the effects of Isabella Byrd’s lighting design, clad in his travel clothes, Boyle’s slow petting of the stuffed toy dog while holding his gaff as a sceptre sets him as a regal vision while he delivers the haunting final lines, “speak no more … you … remain”.
Endgame runs at the Gate Theatre until March 26th.
