Endgame

Nothing much happens in Samuel Beckett’s absurd tragi-comedy, Endgame, so by extension small moments, and with the right cast, movements, seem to possess disproportionate intrigue or impact. As Hamm Hugo Weaving is dastardly debonair, casual and caustic and gleeful enough, whether drumming fingers on the arm of a chair or projecting spittle alongside proclamations.

While the bowed back of his son/servant Clovv occasionally straightens (in reprieve or unsuccessful search for pride, it’s not clear) Tom Budge works hard to bring movement between the otherwise anchored cast (Bruce Spence and Sarah Peirse truly look at home in their bins, wide-eyed and reticent or with lazy rage) though his clowning doesn’t always hit the mark.

What emerges from the dank to which they have confined or resigned themselves (the remnants of some grey mass of brutalism in Nick Schlieper’s design, at some point the damp pulse of dripping water seamlessly replaced with a ticking clock) are pithy observations and epiphanies, a single sentiment, arising from the same persistent need, by turns sad and stoic, to fill the void. After all it’s the dialogue that keeps us here.