Endgame (review)

Frank Galati's depth of interpretation and appreciation of Beckett's theatrical genius were richly expressed by Steppenwolf Theatre's metatheatrical production of Endgame, which featured an all-ensemble cast in the four roles. William Peterson played the blind Hamm, Ian Barford his servant Clov, with Francis Guinan as Hamm's legless father Nagg, and Steppenwolf artistic director Martha Lavey as his mother Nell. Galati's direction evoked several parallels between the circumstances of the story onstage and the act of playing in the theatre, heightening theatrical references in the text, while a series of design and stylistic choices reminded the audience of its shared experience with the actors onstage, rendering an intriguing meditation not only on the end of the world, but also on the end of the kind of theatre and culture characterizing the original production of the play.

The scenery by James Schuette (also costumes) evoked a metaphorical connection between the space of the play's story and the theatre space. A huge curtain hung along the proscenium line, almost covering the entire stage. Schuette covered the remainder of the scenery with a downstage drop cloth. Both the curtain and cloth had the look of very used and worn theatrical muslin. The partial coverage of the curtain suggested a lack of boundary between the spaces of the story onstage and that of the audience; once the curtain rose, a series of scenic gestures reinforced this impression. A large drop cloth covered the central figure of Hamm in his wheeled chair. When Clov removed this and the drop over the cans holding Nagg and Nell, another smaller cloth of the same material covered Hamm's head. When he soon used this cloth to clean the dark glasses that cover his blind eyes, the meaninglessness of barriers provided by both cloth and glasses was revealed, suggesting that the boundary with the curtain at the proscenium was likewise arbitrary.

The curtain rose to reveal Hamm and Clov in a space faithful to Beckett's "bare interior." Towering walls receded to a corner, with two very small windows high above the characters' heads. The texture and look of the walls was likewise reminiscent of the curtains and the drop cloths, further deepening the connection between the spaces, and the lack of boundaries between them. The two walls receded into a shallow corner and towered up to the grid height, suggesting that actors and audience were trapped within the same space. Small curtains, similar to the larger proscenium curtain, further supported these ideas by blocking the two small windows. When Clov opened these (although it was night) to gaze on what we soon heard to be nothingness, the parallel with what our curtain had revealed onstage completed a collapse of boundaries between audience and stage, leaving meaninglessness all around.

All of these connections between the stage and audience space reinforced connections in the text between theatre and real-life activities. Hamm repeats his narration "Me to play," referring to a play in a game or an action onstage. In the course of everyday actions, he and Clov reference asides, a final soliloquy, dialogue, and entrances and exits. Hamm acts as if he is performing for an audience and imagines a "rational being" observing them, striving to make meaning of their actions. Although

William Petersen and Ian Barford in Endgame. (Photo: Michael Brosilow.)

Martha Lavey, Francis Guinan, and William Petersen in Endgame. (Photo: Michael Brosilow.)

this production used edits from Beckett's notebooks that cut Clov's action of turning a telescope to the auditorium, it still referenced the audience throughout by the characters' repeated allusion to being observed, even when alone onstage. Thus the audience was at once implicated in the stage fiction and made aware of their presence in the real space of the theatre, also shared with the performers. This further collapse of barriers between stage and life, together with the repetition of stories and ritual habits, made this a production as...