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When Samuel Beckett wrote Endgame in 1957, audiences were more accustomed to stark, conceptual writing and avant-garde theatrics than we are today. The utterly bizarre one-act play lent itself nicely to the period, both impressing and confounding with strange social and political allegory. The story is simple enough (err, maybe not): a wheelchair-bound man lives with his parents, who are themselves ensconced in a pair of trash cans, and they all heap abuse on their servant. The heart of the work is its dark humor, stylized dialogue, and expressive physicality; the Rude Guerrilla Theater — known for its spirit of scholarship and experimentation — does the challenging modern classic justice. (SND)

Wednesday, May 3, 2006

Theater: Beckett's bleak world in 'Endgame'

Review: Rude Guerrilla encapsulates the absurdist playwright's concepts of comedic yet brutal minimalist theater.

By ERIC MARCHESE

Special to the Register

Had Samuel Beckett written only "Waiting for Godot" and "Endgame," he would still have been hailed as the great visionary of the theater of the absurd.

 From 1952, "Godot" gets universal acclaim and widespread stagings, but "Endgame," from five years later, deals with themes the prolific playwright explored in numerous other plays - confinement, helplessness, the tyranny of relationships.

 Scheduled to coincide with the centenary of Beckett's birth, Rude Guerrilla Theater Company's staging of "Endgame" not only resounds with these quintessential Beckett concerns, but reverberates with elements from "Godot."

 In an underground locale - it could be a basement, a bunker or a bomb shelter - four characters live out the ends of their lives. The forceful Hamm (Arturo Jones), who cannot walk, seems to be the master, and Clov (Allen Moon), who cannot sit, his servant.

 The duo echo the brutality of the master-servant pair Pozzo and Lucky of "Godot," while their dialogue interchanges ring of that play's tramps, Didi and Gogo. Beckett, however, imbues Clov with a sense of how much Hamm needs him, giving him power over Hamm.

 Confined in the same claustrophobic space are Hamm's parents, Nagg (Joseph Byrd) and Nell (Jami Lieberman). They're legless, and each lives in a garbage can, where they're treated more or less as pets - or worse, slaves.

 This could be some bizarre, post-nuclear world where everyone struggles for survival, or it could simply be the extreme result of societies that value ideologies or materialism over human life. The time, place and context are never specified because, as director Michael David Fox's staging proves, Beckett's ideas transcend such specifics, creating disturbing images while raising philosophical questions deeply troubling once dwelled upon.

 Beckett means for us to dwell on these issues, and Fox and company oblige with a compact staging that, like "Godot," can be achingly funny one moment, stark and bleak the next.

 The laughter comes almost solely from Moon's work as Clov. A running gag has Clov repeatedly carting a stepladder on and off stage, going through an identical series of moves to set up the ladder, scale it, move the shredded curtains aside and peer out the windows before reversing the process.

 With a background in dance, Moon lends a physical grace to these slapstick scenes that belies his characterization of Clov as a sinister type (think hunchback or pirate) with hissing voice and lurching walk. Clov takes perverse delight in Hamm's suffering, Moon and Fox taking care to show us Clov's sadism, bitterness and driving need to abandon Hamm once and for all.

 Jones counters with an intense Hamm - a bellowing dictator with a fierce disposition. Like Clov, though, the man is a study in contradictions - pushy, yet in need of painkillers; arrogant, yet with a mien of sagacity. More crucially, while Moon's portrayal is visual, Jones' is aural, his spellbinding voice gripping the ear and the imagination.

 Byrd and Lieberman's roles are smaller and less pivotal, but the pair respond in kind to the work of Jones and Moon. Byrd in particular neatly articulates Nagg's contempt for his son's arrogance.

 The show's scenic, lighting and production design, by Shannon Lee Blas and Steven E. Parker Jr., are suitably stark and minimalist. Like Fox's direction, they force us to examine the ideas put forth by one of the 20th century's most innovative and influential playwrights.

Beckett's Endgame

Trifling as ever

By Joel Beers

Samuel Beckett’s Endgame is an inside joke of a play—something that those who know it and its idiosyncratic creator can proudly brandish; but which for the rest of us amounts to a yawn-inducing trifle. It is ritualistic, poetic and masterfully crafted, but with a negligible plot, scant character development and little to no dramatic action. This makes it, if not anti-theater, the kind of stuff that is hard for members of any audience to digest.

This Rude Guerrilla production won’t change anyone’s mind. Director Michael David Fox’s version is faithful enough visually to satisfy Beckett purists—the set and lighting are sparse and spooky, and most of the cast gets Beckett and his rhythms. But anyone not willing to dig deeper into the fascinating matrix of existential, literary and slapstick ideas that fuel its action will be left like the kid I saw sitting in the front row: far more interested in playing solo rock-paper-scissors than in engaging with the play.

And when you’re getting yelled at, why try to understand? Arturo Jones, as the blind, chair-bound patriarch Hamm, is constantly screaming—and by playing Hamm as a shrieking, bullying asshole, Jones robs him of his capacity for tragic isolation. That, coupled with a rather busy Sunday afternoon in the space the theater occupies—were those really peg-legged pirates square-dancing on the floor above?—made for a long 100 minutes. Endgame must be heard as well as seen, which was difficult at best.