Endgame

“Life, is suffering.” So say Buddha and philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, for starters. This universal truth works well as a three-word synopsis for Samuel Beckett’s Endgame. 

As a self-confessed pleb when it comes to the celebrated Irish playwright, it served me to brush up on the author’s dramatic life-story to ascertain how and why his inventive knack for the absurd emerged. Wow. His is a story of exceptional heroism, suffering and selflessness. Little wonder his fertile brain leaned heavily towards examining the minutiae of what it means to endure and that he had the bravery to step outside the accepted norm to confront and irritate his audiences into laughter. 

Director Amelia Pond has assembled an experienced and talented cast to embody the pitiful foursome that personify this relentlessly circular ode to existential angst. With each of the four miserable characters being physically incapacitated - Beckett literally adds insult to injury. 

Yet with each absurd affliction, Beckett’s life experiences inform every silly word uttered. 

Taking actual centre stage, as the blind and ruthlessly antagonistic ‘Hamm’, Kerri Gay makes deceptively easy work of ‘his’ lengthy, repetitive dialogue. Without the actor’s colourful flair punctuating each phrase - the monologues would be nigh intolerable. Meanwhile, Georgia Heiniger’s disciplined physical portrayal punctuates the phrase ”long-suffering companion”. The pair play off each other extremely well, yet maintain individuality amidst their shared isolation.

Literally popping up to provide welcome extra comedy relief as – ‘Nagg and Nell’ are Peter McAllum and Emma Carracher - whose combined warmth and charisma shines through their characters’ overtly comical existence as ‘legless bin-dwellers’.  

Carracher’s facial expressions are hilariously mesmerising while McAllum’s impeccable delivery imbues all the silliness with heartwarming pathos. 

The detailed, grubby, yet sparse set and subtle lighting cues set the right tone for this undoubtedly hard-working ensemble to showcase their craft. The preview went off seemingly without a hitch.

The play's tagline: “Nothing is funnier than unhappiness” tends to underplay the intense human experiences the piece clearly represents, when juxtaposed with the author's real life. This in and of itself is something I’ll be angsting about for some time to come.

Rose Cooper

Photographer: Brandon Durham/Absolute Imagery