Endgame
By Samuel Beckett
Performed — 2017 at Heath Ledger Theatre
Four characters locked up in a refuge. Is it the end? Much is at stake.
The relationship between Hamm, the blind and cantankerous master unable to stand, and Clov, his long suffering servant son who cannot sit, is beginning to strain. Nagg and Nell, Hamm’s decrepit parents living in garbage cans, are not helping matters. They too seem stuck between light and dark, life and death. Ruminating on past deeds and actions that, at their core, are meaningless.
This tragicomedy reveals the constant duel between tyranny and submission and the need and desire to break free of the cycle. Confusion reigns – is it the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning? Beckett (awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature) considered this his favourite play, even over Waiting for Godot. As the chess game reference implies, Endgame is about how or why one bothers to move at all, when all moves lead to death.
Black Swan welcomes the return of Founding Artistic Director Andrew Ross, to direct this rarely seen and engaging piece of absurd theatre.
DIRECTOR Andrew Ross
SET & COSTUME DESIGNER Tyler Hill
LIGHTING DESIGNER Mark Howett
CAST INCLUDES Geoff Kelso, Caroline McKenzie, Kelton Pell, George Shevtsov
