The Beginning of Endgame

THE BEGINNING OF ENDGAME THE FIRST PRINTED MENTION OF Endgame occurs in a note from Beckett to Alan Schneider, subsequently published in The Village Voice of March 19, 1958. On December 27, 1955, from his "shelter" near the Marne River, Beckett wrote that he was "struggling with a play." After Beckett heard of the harsh reviews of Schneider's production of Waiting for Godot~ the playwright tried to comfort the director in his letter of January II, 1956, and he added, "I am writing an even worse affair and have got down the gist of the first act (of two)." Beckett's April 12 letter to Schneider expresses dissatisfaction with the play, which its author compares to a threelegged giraffe that should have a leg taken off or added on. By June 21, the amputation was completed, for Beckett informs Schneider: "Have at last written another, one act, longish, hour and a quarter I fancy." Today, Beckett tends to speak nostalgically of his five-year period of free-flowing creation (1946-50), during which he produced the bulk of his works. Since that time, he has found writing an increasingly arduous task. The French original of Endgame (Fin de partie) is the first product of that difficult time that extends to today. And yet, the manuscript in the Ohio State University library shows little evidence of his "struggle." What is evident is the single giant step by which the "three-legged giraffe" achieved equilibrium in Fin de partie. Condensing Fin de partie from two acts to one, Beckett changed the shape of the play-and shape is of prime importance to him. Waiting for Godot and Endgame~ between them, predict the shape of all his subsequent plays. The repetitious quality of human existence is reflected both in the two movements of Godat and the single movement of the final Endgame. The two acts of Godat resemble each other as do the days of our lives. In Endgame life is precipitated to a single day in which minute details resemble each other repetitivelyphrase , gesture, and pause. In Endgame as we know it, Clov's opening speech and Hamm's closing speech evoke Zeno's paradox where an infinite number of millet grains never mount up to a whole, where there are "Moments for nothing, now as always, time was never and time is over, reckoning closed and story ended." Though Zeno is not mentioned by name in Endgame~ the grains of millet are present in the early and in the final versions, and in the latter they are associated with "that old Greek." For Beckett, infinitely repeated grains, words, gestures, pauses, and moments 319 320 MODERN DRAMA December never "mount up to a life." In Godot~ the cumulative repetition is largely structural; in Endgame~ it is more textural. But textural repetition is obscured in the early draft of Endgame~ by the forward drive of disintegration. Despite the non sequitur dialogue, the early draft of Endgame contains an action rising to a climax, for Act I closes on the death of Nell. Because Nagg wanted to hold Nell's hand, he knocked at the lid of her ashbin. Crying out that she does not answer, Nagg prompts Clov to look into the bin. By removing his beret, Clov indicates to us that Nell is dead; by removing the skull-cap from Nagg's head, Clov indicates to him that Nell is dead. But blind Hamm yawns and closes the act with French cliche nonsense syllables of boredom: "Oh la la." Act II is not so entropic as the final version of Endgame~ but its action has a dying fall. It opens with Hamm's ironic remark about the beauty of life, to which Clov assents. Nell's ashbin has been removed ; Hamm wears a black night-cap, Clov a black beret, and Nagg a black skull-cap. The once-red faces of Hamm, Clov, and N agg have turned as white as that of NeIl. Towards the middle of the act, Nagg tells Clov that it isn't worth the trouble to make saw-dust for him (instead of the inorganic sand of the final version), and Clov notes that these may...