T. Charles Erickson
Dennehy and Cathey.
There’s a pantomime routine at the beginning of Endgame, the Samuel Beckett dramatic masterpiece now playing at the Long Wharf Theatre until Feb. 5, in which a man named Clov — who is physically unable to sit down — checks the state of affairs outside the two high windows in the back of the single room where the play takes place. He needs a ladder to be able to see out the windows. He places the ladder under one of the windows, climbs the ladder with difficulty, checks outside, gets down, starts walking to the next window. Turns and sighs. He has forgotten to bring the ladder with him. He gets the ladder, places it beneath the next window, climbs it with difficulty, checks outside again, gets down. Starts walking away. Turns and sighs, louder. He has forgotten the ladder again.
Clov is the servant of Hamm — a man in a makeshift wheelchair that is usually at the center of the room, who begins the play underneath a sheet. By extension, this also makes him the servant of Hamm’s parents, Nagg and Nell, who live in two trash bins, one for each of them, in the corner of the room.
The four of them are trapped. Something catastrophic has happened to the world outside. Everyone else has vanished. Outside the windows is, as Clov reports, “gray,” or “nothing,” or “zero.” There is a leaden ocean, but no tide. Once there were bicycles, but now there are no more bicycles.
Meanwhile, all four seem to be wasting away, some more slowly than others. Hamm can’t get out of his wheelchair and is blind. Nagg seems to be missing his legs. Nell seems frailest of all. Clov is the only one who can move of his own free will; all the others have is their minds and their voices. And in Beckett’s hands, what voices they all are.
The Nobel Prize-winning Beckett is easily one of the most influential playwrights of the 20th century, and for many people, Endgame is his best play. It is bleak and funny, often at the same time, in the same sentence. It can be performed in a fleet 90 minutes, and it wrings meaning and weight from every single short, everyday word in the script. Not one is wasted. Beckett is a rebuke to every writer who says it can’t be made shorter, that the prose can’t be tighter, that we need to use big words for big ideas. Beckett did it all.
The only real question in a review of Endgame is whether the production can rise to the level of the play. It isn’t easy. Beckett’s harrowing use of English is mirrored in the limitations he places on the actors. Three out of four of the characters on the stage are immobile, and the fourth one has trouble getting around. Dramatic body language is a tool Beckett takes out of the tool box.
Moreover, as simple as the text is, it’s also wildly emotional, turning from hilarious to devastating on a dime. There are no throwaways. Every line matters. Does this production — directed by Gordon Edelstein, Long Wharf’s artistic director — manage it?
Cohen and Grifasi.
I’m happy to report that, by and large, it does — not surprising, given the assembled cast of seasoned and celebrated actors. Brian Dennehy slips easily into the role of the imperious Hamm, proving as he did in Long Wharf’s previous production of Krapp’s Last Tape how comfortable he is in Beckett’s linguistic world. Lynn Cohen and Joe Grifasi capture the frailty and resignation of his parents. They make every drum of their fingers count. All of the cast bring out the conversation and the music in Beckett’s sparse language. But it’s Reg E. Cathey’s exquisitely measured performance of Clov that makes this production of Endgame different from others.
On the page, Endgame is mostly a play about stasis, about the inability of its characters to escape their situation. It’s dominated by Hamm, who has far and away the most to say. In Hamm’s protracted conversations with his parents, the play can become something of a family drama. In productions that lean into that, the catastrophe outside fades into the background, as does Clov.
But in this production, Cathey’s revelatory take on Clov draws attention to the servant in a way that other production of Endgame I’ve seen have not. It changes the angle of the play, and shifts our perspective of the characters, so that we see Hamm, Nagg, and Nell more specifically through Clov’s eyes. And in his gaze, Hamm is a man simply at the end of his powers; perhaps once he could rule those around him through sheer force of will, but that will has faded with his health. It’s not entirely clear that his parents even listen to him any more; sometimes it’s unclear whether they even hear him. Clov wonders aloud, and often, why he doesn’t just leave. And then, two things happen — two important things — that just might be the push he needs.
In drawing more attention to Clov, the Long Wharf’s production of Endgame might lose a bit in dramatic bite. The emotional roller coaster isn’t quite as violent as it could be; some of the jokes don’t land as neatly as they could, and some lines don’t twist the knife as hard, either. But something is gained, too. Despite the popular conception of him as a connoisseur of misery, in his life and in his work, Beckett never advocated suicide, but resistance. This Endgame digs deeper into that resistance and comes up with something perhaps even more surprising: hope.
Endgame runs at the Long Wharf Theatre, 222 Sargeant Dr., through Feb. 5. Click here for tickets and more information.
