Druid’s ENDGAME Is Too Warm for the Apocalypse — Review

Far be it from me to suggest Ireland’s venerable Druid Theatre Company has an unsteady grasp on Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, but at least in comparison to Irish Rep’s production from 2023, their take on the post-apocalyptic absurd lacks firm grounding. In that one, Hamm, a chair-bound tyrant overseeing his shoddy, one-room kingdom, savored each of his ridiculous proclamations, and his slave (is it?) Clov, seemed the result of ages of systematic denigration – what the Hamms of the world had willed all others to become in subservience. And Hamm’s parents, Nagg and Nell, literally discarded and relegated to live in trashcans inside that room, seemed to take their situation in stride. Everyone was content with their lot in life; queasy for us, but what else do they know? In a play where nothing happens, taking place long past the last time anything good happened, characters must be as sure of themselves as the apocalypse is of itself, because unaware idiots will continue playing their parts even past the endtime; maybe that’s why they survived.

Directed by Garry Hynes, Rory Nolan’s Hamm and Aaron Monaghan’s Clov are too self-aware, whinier and more interested than the exoskeletal puppets Beckett’s play seems to call for. Along with Bosco Hogan and Marie Mullen’s Nagg and Nell, they’re too emotionally invested in each others’ requests for the comedic absurdity to come through. Allowing them the humanity of discontent, let alone dissent, works against the piece, and suddenly we’re just watching four people vainly complain for 90 minutes. Francis O’Connor’s appealing set, a concrete cylinder dotted with water stains suggesting a seaside turret, suggests a brutalism the rest of the production does not achieve.

Endgame is in performance at Irish Arts Center on 11th Avenue in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here.