...and Endgame For Afters
The Age
Friday October 24, 2008
ENDGAME: 1958-2008
By Samuel Beckett, The Eleventh Hour, 170 Leicester Street, Fitzroy. October 21. Runs until November 8. www.theeleventhhour.com.au Running time: 90 minutes REIMAGINING Samuel Beckett's work poses particular problems for directors because Beckett, like many 20th century playwrights, wrote obsessive stage directions for his plays, which allow little room for adaptation.The Beckett estate is also jealous of any auteur imposing his or her own interpretation on the master's work.The Eleventh Hour's solution, in its marvellous production of Endgame, is to frame the performance with eclectic inter-textual references, including excerpts of the Chaconne from Bach's Partita No.2 for solo violin, and a few minutes of classic Buster Keaton slapstick.Keaton's physical humour reminds us how cathartic it is to laugh at misfortune and pain, and this image frames the play's opening.David Tredinnick plays the put-upon servant Clov, staring at Keaton blustering through life's vicissitudes."Why can't I do this?" Clov might be thinking. The reason of course is his wheelchair-bound master, Hamm, played with terrific insight by Peter Houghton.This is one of Houghton's finest achievements, as he barks his vain orders like a mad seer from his static throne, a bit like Davros who has had his Daleks stolen.There is great comic interplay between Houghton and Tredinnick, and even if the pitch and tone of their dialogue might not appease every Beckett fan, it's a performance with great focus and integrity.Nestled in their respective bins, Richard Bligh and Evelyn Krape enjoy their moments as Beckett's unforgettable characters Nagg and Nell.The show concludes as profoundly as it opens with Miwako Abe's sensitive performance of the Chaconne.This is a piece of music built on an endlessly repeated motif of descending notes, leading nowhere, yet achieving the sublime. Like Keaton, it serves to remind Beckett's characters - and us - that the torment of the quotidian can be overcome.This production is an example of what Melbourne independent theatre does best.
© 2008 The Age