| Endgame |
| Written by Kevin Filipski | |||
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Endgame By Samuel Beckett Directed by Andrei Belgrader Starring John Turturro, Max Casella, Alvin Epstein, Elaine Stritch Performances April 25–May 18, 2008 BAM Harvey Theater 651 Fulton Street, Brooklyn bam.org  John Turturro and Max Casella in ENDGAME; photo by Richard Termine Belgrader doesn’t do anything as trite as introduce extraneous electronic devices to parallel today’s world -- although, throughout the performance I attended, several thoughtless audience members provided their own cell phone accompaniment. Instead, the director takes the iconic images of Endgame images and suffuses them with new life: the blind, crippled Hamm in his wheelchair; his servant Clov limpingly following his master’s orders; and Nagg and Nell, Hamm’s parents, gamely suffering their final days in matching trash cans. These images are as powerful as ever, thanks to the director's and a quartet of perfectly-matched actors' trust in Beckett’s splendid script. The setting is, simply, the end of the world, as Beckett drops his foursome into a vague, post-apocalyptic terrain with no explanation. (The work of set designer Anita Stewart, costumer Candice Donnelly, and lighting designer Michael Chybowski is magisterial.) Through monstrously dark gallows humor and subtly affecting moments of sheer humanity, Beckett allows these people to become by turns as pathetic or heroic, as heinous or gentle, as ugly or beautiful as possible. In other words, even more so than in Waiting for Godot, he has created the most persuasive summation of the human condition this side of Shakespeare. In this staging, Belgrader takes Beckett at his word(s), and the result is the most satisfying Endgame I’ve seen. The director follows the script closely, making only one unwise decision: He allows the alarm clock scene to play out far too long, which reduces it to a mere gag. Otherwise, Belgrader firmly handles the plawyright’s peculiar rhythms -- the way certain phrases are emphasized or de-emphasized, for example, or the startling originality of Beckett’s pauses, next to which Harold Pinter’s seem merely pedantic. The actors follow suit. As Nell, Elaine Stritch is heartbreaking in her single scene opposite her husband Nagg. Not only does Stritch get the emphasis right in her admission that “Nothing is funnier than unhappiness,” she also locates the emotions bubbling underneath Beckett’s sardonic dialogue, as witness her blank slate of a face when Nagg re-tells a story for the umpteenth time. Most happily, there is no “Elaine Stritch” in her portrayal as she willingly enters Beckett’s world. Alvin Epstein has played Nagg often, and he knows enough to give Nagg a low-key dignity that belies his seeming idiocy as demonstrated by frequent, snake-like dartings of the tongue. Epstein also does wonders with Nagg’s futile attempts to chew the stale biscuit that Clov has given him, making him nearly heroic as he gives this defiant “up yours” to death. He may not be long for this world, but he will not go quietly. Max Casella’s Clov effortlessly combines graceful limping movements with split-second comic timing in his endless bantering with Hamm. This performance demonstrates that the intense physicality in Beckett’s plays is their most underappreciated feature. Such comic exertion could easily turn into mindless Keystone Kops-Three Stooges nonsense, but Casella and Belgrader instead skillfully integrate it into the characterization of Clov, ennobling his humanity through his physical and mental handicaps. Finally, there’s John Turturro, front and center as the blind, wheelchair-bound Hamm. Although the actor sometimes takes the character's name literally and hams it up (to the audience’s delight), he gives him a certain grandeur. By the time of the play's emotionally draining climax, when he takes stock of this no-win situation and resignedly accepts his fate, Turturro has transformed Hamm into someone who has proudly given all he has to avoid the ultimate endgame: death. In displaying Beckett’s fatalism and humanism side by side and balancing them perfectly, which the best productions of Beckett must do but so many fail to do, Belgrader and company's Endgame is a remarkable achievement. {mos_ri}
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