Samuel Beckett wrote Endgame in 1957, and translated it himself the following year from its original French into English. Written during the “age of anxiety” of cold war posturing by the former Soviet Union and the United States, Endgame is set in a post-apocalyptic world. The four characters live out what could prove to be their final days in a bunker-like environment, each attempting -- whether by connecting to the past (‘Ah, yesterday!’), or entertaining themselves with the routine inanities of daily life-- to will themselves to live another day. The results are penetrating, profound, and hilarious. Indeed, the humor generated from this despairing situation is quite surprising, and shows Beckett’s sure hand with tragicomedy. The master/slave, father/son struggle of Hamm and Clov is at the center of Endgame. Beckett was a devotee of vaudeville and of the great silent screen clowns, e.g. Laurel and Hardy, Chaplin, and Buster Keaton (in fact, Beckett’s one film, entitled Film, stars Keaton), and this appreciation is apparent in Endgame. Hamm and Clov’s constant verbal sparring, one-upsmanship and physical pranks are also redolent of the comedic partners Carney and Gleason, or Abbott and Costello. The ultimate dysfunctional family is completed by Hamm’s parents, Nell and Nagg, confined to garbage bins by their loving son. With Endgame, Beckett resolves the dramatic flaws he complained of in his early masterpiece Waiting for Godot, mainly those of pacing and redundancy. Running at a swift but packed ninety minutes, Endgame is all lean. Of all his plays, Beckett was known to like Endgame the best, or, to be more accurate, he said he disliked Endgame the least.
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