Endgame

The lights come up on this production of Beckett's post-apocalyptic
masterpiece to the faint tolling of a bell, revealing a set reminiscent of
the back of your local Scotmid. Clov, a masterful turn by wheelchair bound
actor Garry Robson, appears, wheels himself around and, snickering quietly,
exits, leaving a set drab in the extreme.

The 'kinetic set' was designed by Glasgow's Russian emigre artists Sharmanka and resembles the creations of a particularly morose team on dire TV show Scrapyard Challenge, their creations therefore chiming appositely with Beckett's dystopian vision. Despite their kinetic billing, the only discernable moving part is a bell with phallus clapper rung by the twisted character that emerges from behind a bloodied sheet halfway up the tower of scaffolding that dominates centre stage.

This is Hamm, the despotic, but ultimately vulnerable, blind and paralysed
main protagonist who is played by Nabil Shaban whose impressive c.v. oscillates from Dr. Who to Hamlet. Hamm yearns for death. Clov, his dogsbody and foil, hankers for escape but they stay, obstinately and inexplicably refusing the other his wish. "I'll leave
you" says Clov repeatedly, but he always comes back. Their flawed interdependance is the crux of the play. Clov's disabilty reflects the impossibility of escape and his physical incapabilities act as a metaphor for the profound emotional shortcomings of the main characters.

Beckett's mastery of the humour of despair is encapsulated by the figures of Hamm's parents, Nell and Nagg. Confined to the wheely bins, their
comic turns leaven the unremitting bleakness and they, for a brief, deeply
poignant moment, remind the audience of a life of romance and youthful
exuberance with a Joycean reminiscence of their days as young lovers.

Despite Nagg's assertion that "nothing is funnier than unhappiness", director Robert Rae's staging ultimately fails to deliver Beckett's absurdist punchlines, preferring instead to wallow in the shallows of the text's unrelenting misery.

And, this being Beckett, both Nagg and Nell are dead by the end of the play.