ENDGAME
Project Arts Centre 27 November - 07 December 2019
Des Keogh and Rosaleen Linehan are superlative as Nagg and Nell ... conveying the musicality and humour in Beckett’s language, while remaining touchingly credible.
The Sunday Times
Endgame tells the story of Hamm, a blind man who cannot stand; Clov, his servant, who cannot sit; and Nagg and Nell, Hamm’s parents, who have no legs and live in rubbish bins.
Ah the old questions, the old answers, there’s nothing like them.
What more is there to tell?
(Somehow, human civilisation arrived at the point where someone made this play.)
What remains?
(The things in the world, already few, are becoming gradually more scarce.)
What is there besides the three-legged dog? The alarm clock?
(Old wall. The gaff. The sheets. The ladder. The telescope. Those bins. That chair. The toque. The windows.)
Would he have been satisfied with less?
(There are no more bicycle wheels.)
Are there any more sugar-plums?
(No. Spoiler alert. No painkillers either.)
Except the one, of course.
(Is the play monstrous, or beautiful? Tragic, or comic? Or both?)
It’s not certain.
This performance contains ideas that are inherently disturbing.
Supported by the Arts Council and Dublin City Council.
Directed by Gavin Quinn
Designed by Aedin Cosgrove
Dramaturg: Nicholas Johnson
Assistant Director: Grace Morgan
Executive Producer: Tríona Ní Dhuibhir
Producer: Gwen Van Spÿk
Cast: Andrew Bennett, Des Keogh, Rosaleen Linehan and Antony Morris
‘A sublime Rosaleen Linehan and a mesmerizing Des Keogh ... two marvelous maestros living discontentedly in their dustbins ... “Endgame” immediately comes alive under their auspices.’
- The Arts Review
‘The questions it asks about life and death are universal ... the apocalyptic wasteland of its setting, meanwhile, has never seemed more pertinent.’
- The Ticket: The Irish Times