On my 21st birthday I was given two very different chess sets. One of elegant polished marble, the other an almost savage wooden set, and both totemic in their universal fashion. But while the game looked very different from board to board the rules remain fixed, and if there were surprises to be had they were at the hands of the player.
Endgame is infused with chess, and Samuel Beckett himself was a strong advocate of the game. The title itself refers to the stage of the game where few pieces remain in play, fitting for our dwindling quartet: Hamm (Hugo Weaving), Clov (Tom Budge), Nell (Sarah Peirse) and Nagg (Bruce Spence). Yet Andrew Upton’s revival of this grimly comic masterpiece might more reasonably be called Stalemate – a deadlocked production whose inconsistent pacing leads the better part of the audience to torpor (or as the couple seated beside us put it, “God, now that we’ve survived the endurance test, who’s up for a drink?”).
We’re not sure exactly where we are in this visually arresting world. Outside is death, we are told, but inside isn’t faring much better. A single room perhaps at the base of a crumbling tower; the windows are certainly high enough that Clov needs a ladder to peer outside at the abandoned landscape. He exists in the service of Hamm, a blind, saturnine figure confined to his chair, yet who is the master of this ruined house. Two bins stand nearby, the prison homes of Hamm’s literally legless parents, and although Peirse’s Nell is a wonderful invention, full of resignation and pathos, it is Spence’s Nagg who emerges as the standout. His woeful, extraordinarily expressive face brings the exaggerated responses of Nagg’s sad life to the fore, and though his circumstance is ridiculous, Spence makes his suffering seem relatable.
Budge is a splendid, soiled buffoon, creaking across stage like a rusty fishing hook; Clov may never sit down, you see, and such confined movement must make for a physically demanding performance. Weaving, curiously, is much more uneven. His Hamm is a deliciously harrowing creation, veering from simpering grandiloquence to blunt aggression in a heartbeat. Yet often he seems to lose faith in his performance, and any energy he has been investing in the role suddenly flees.
Though certainly an accomplished director, I feel the stagnation at Endgame’s heart has its roots in Upton. A sparsely worded play in a sparsely constructed world does not itself need to be sparse, yet there are mires in this production that too often leave the audience unmoved. As with a stalemate, we are concluded, if unfulfilled.
3/5 stars
Endgame is playing at Roslyn Packer Theatre Walsh Bay until Saturday May 9.
