ENDGAME To 5 December.

London.

ENDGAME
by Samuel Beckett.

Duchess Theatre To 5 December 2009.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Wed & Sat 3pm.
Runs 1hr 45min No interval.

TICKETS: 0844 412 4659
www.nimaxtheatres.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 20 October.

Playful company and poet of gloom as Complicite meets Beckett.
Having made entertainment out of The Chairs, one of Eugene Ionesco’s most intractable scripts, Complicite’s Simon McBurney now turns his attention to fellow Absurdist Samuel Beckett’s sternest assignment. More attention than he might have expected. When the production lost the two actors who between them speak over 90% of the script, McBurney took on the role of servant Clov, unable to sit, in contrast to Hamm, blind and unable to stand.

With Mark Rylance also coming in, as Hamm, a major feature becomes the contrast between the sometimes expressionless Clov, with washed-out face and vest, going through daily routines made meaningless by the devastation outside, and Rylance’s magnetic creation.

Both find any form of life – a flea, a rat, a child – repulsive. Yet Rylance’s Hamm is an energetic figure. In his elaborate armchair, his legs hang useless off the ground, the right foot turned-in. But the upper body is impatiently mobile. Fists push on the chair-arms as if he hoped to stand, hands search the wings for comfort; at one point he pulls himself up with his elbows, ignoring his father Nagg’s speech.

References to acting and playing have never seemed so prominent, while the character is accordingly protean: arrogant, scornful, sarcastic, yet with moments of pathos and others of solipsistic self-sufficiency.

There are even moments of sympathy between the characters; though many more of outright rage as their relationship follows the shapes of the script, having a lifelike variety which makes for a more colourful production than Beckett probably intended, or indeed wanted.

Hamm’s parents, consigned to dustbins in a keen symbol increasingly apparent in an era when survival into old-age goes way beyond the fittest, are excellently played by Tom Hickey, as his wiry father, ducking when his son’s ire turns in his direction, bobbing around in his bin, and Miriam Margolyes, whose Nell is largely still. Their mutual tenderness, with the impossibility of physical contact is made keener by a humour which has Margolyes, especially, resembling a grandparent puppet out of Avenue Q. This may not be the gloomiest Endgame ever, but it’s freshly-imagined and consistently intriguing.

Hamm: Mark Rylance.
Clov: Simon McBurney.
Nekk: Miriam Margolyes.
Nagg: Tom Hickey.

Director: Simon McBurney.
Designer: Tim Hatley.
Lighting: Paul Anderson.
Sound: Gareth Fry.
Costume: Christina Cunningham.
Associate directors: Marcello Magni, Ian Rickson, Douglas Rintoul.

2009-10-20 23:46:39