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Endgame & Act Without Words I
Samuel Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969; his literary output of plays, novels, stories and poetry has earned him an uncontested place as one of the greatest writers of our time. Endgame , originally written in French and translated into English by Beckett himself, is considered by many critics to be his greatest single work. A pinnacle of Beckett’s characteristic raw minimalism, it is a pure and devastating distillation of the human essence in the face of approaching death.
100 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1957
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5883 people want to read
About the author
Samuel Beckett
911 books6,498 followersNovels of Samuel Barclay Beckett, Irish writer, include
Murphy
in 1938 and
Malone Dies
in 1951; a wider audience know his absurdist plays, such as
Waiting for Godot
in 1952 and
Krapp's Last Tape
in 1959, and he won the Nobel Prize of 1969 for literature.
Samuel Barclay Beckett, an avant-garde theater director and poet, lived in France for most of his adult life. He used English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black gallows humor.
People regard most influence of Samuel Barclay Beckett of the 20th century. James Augustine Aloysius Joyce strongly influenced him, whom people consider as one modernist. People sometimes consider him as an inspiration to many later first postmodernists. He is one of the key in what Martin Esslin called the "theater of the absurd". His later career worked with increasing minimalism.
People awarded Samuel Barclay Beckett "for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation".
In 1984, people elected Samuel Barclay Bennett as Saoi of Aosdána.
Samuel Barclay Beckett, an avant-garde theater director and poet, lived in France for most of his adult life. He used English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black gallows humor.
People regard most influence of Samuel Barclay Beckett of the 20th century. James Augustine Aloysius Joyce strongly influenced him, whom people consider as one modernist. People sometimes consider him as an inspiration to many later first postmodernists. He is one of the key in what Martin Esslin called the "theater of the absurd". His later career worked with increasing minimalism.
People awarded Samuel Barclay Beckett "for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation".
In 1984, people elected Samuel Barclay Bennett as Saoi of Aosdána.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 296 reviews
September 9, 2023
The end is in the beginning and yet you go on.
Every time I promise myself not to read another Beckett and every single time I break it. And now I feel miserable.
And yet I hesitate, I hesitate to ... to end. Yes, there it is, it's time it ended and yet I hesitate to-to end.
Every time I promise myself not to read another Beckett and every single time I break it. And now I feel miserable.
And yet I hesitate, I hesitate to ... to end. Yes, there it is, it's time it ended and yet I hesitate to-to end.
September 17, 2008
It's unfortunate to see reviews of Beckett contain so many cliches. Defining his work by "existenial" or "absurd" -whether in a positive or negative context- is as reductive as defining Faulkner's works as "Southern" or Dostoyevski's as "psychological."
Beckett strived to create original works that reflected his preoccupation with complex ideas of philosophers (Descartes and schopenhauer)and psychology (Young and Freud) He also belonged to the liteary generation (like Eliot and Joyce) that wrote with the classical western literature in mind. Dante, Bible, Proust, Shakespeare in particular. Beckett, like any other serious author, failed at times but he was always committed to his art and honest. He never intended to tell stories or impose an absolute explanation on what he considered very difficult themes.
I also am not sure why some reviewers conclude the difficulty in understanding Beckett is enough reason to dismiss his work. I do not understand most of Quantum Physics but I don't conclude it's meaningless.
Beckett strived to create original works that reflected his preoccupation with complex ideas of philosophers (Descartes and schopenhauer)and psychology (Young and Freud) He also belonged to the liteary generation (like Eliot and Joyce) that wrote with the classical western literature in mind. Dante, Bible, Proust, Shakespeare in particular. Beckett, like any other serious author, failed at times but he was always committed to his art and honest. He never intended to tell stories or impose an absolute explanation on what he considered very difficult themes.
I also am not sure why some reviewers conclude the difficulty in understanding Beckett is enough reason to dismiss his work. I do not understand most of Quantum Physics but I don't conclude it's meaningless.
October 16, 2009
The set of Endgame resembles a skull, with two high windows on the left and right. This is a play about hell: hell in the head as well as that state that might be awaiting us.
Everything is grey. There is no colour anywhere. At centre stage sits Hamm, in a chair on casters, with a bloodied handkerchief covering his dead. At left, two garbage cans covered with an old sheet. Clov stands at the right, next to a door. A picture hangs on the wall, face to the wall.
The garbage cans contain Hamm’s parents, Nagg and Nell, legless and helpless. Nell dies about two-thirds of the way through the play. Clov is Hamm’s servant, and there is constant tension between the two of them as Clov wants to leave but cannot. There is no yesterday or tomorrow, as they are all locked into an eternal now, although they all refer to wistful memories.
There is a marked ‘sense of ending’ in the play; the word ‘end’ occurs at least nine times in the text and is of course picked up in the title. Hamm is like a decrepit king surrounded by a diminished court. This is King Lear taken to the extreme. He is playing an endgame of chess against the fates, and he is losing. Beckett described Hamm as ‘a bit of a monster…the remains of a monster’.
Such action as there is constitutes time filling, and all the characters (with the exception of Nell, who is beyond caring) are waiting for something, though they have no idea for what. This is the human condition stripped to the bone.
Beckett’s is a hell far removed from Dante’s: a sordid bed sit rather than an apocalyptic Inferno. Something is better than nothing, which is what these characters have. It is a hell without god or devil, where the torture is in empty repetition of pointless actions, of not knowing: a hell for our times, indeed.
Everything is grey. There is no colour anywhere. At centre stage sits Hamm, in a chair on casters, with a bloodied handkerchief covering his dead. At left, two garbage cans covered with an old sheet. Clov stands at the right, next to a door. A picture hangs on the wall, face to the wall.
The garbage cans contain Hamm’s parents, Nagg and Nell, legless and helpless. Nell dies about two-thirds of the way through the play. Clov is Hamm’s servant, and there is constant tension between the two of them as Clov wants to leave but cannot. There is no yesterday or tomorrow, as they are all locked into an eternal now, although they all refer to wistful memories.
There is a marked ‘sense of ending’ in the play; the word ‘end’ occurs at least nine times in the text and is of course picked up in the title. Hamm is like a decrepit king surrounded by a diminished court. This is King Lear taken to the extreme. He is playing an endgame of chess against the fates, and he is losing. Beckett described Hamm as ‘a bit of a monster…the remains of a monster’.
Such action as there is constitutes time filling, and all the characters (with the exception of Nell, who is beyond caring) are waiting for something, though they have no idea for what. This is the human condition stripped to the bone.
Beckett’s is a hell far removed from Dante’s: a sordid bed sit rather than an apocalyptic Inferno. Something is better than nothing, which is what these characters have. It is a hell without god or devil, where the torture is in empty repetition of pointless actions, of not knowing: a hell for our times, indeed.
April 3, 2022
i just wish i could get a glimpse of what was inside Beckett's brain, that would have been incredibly helpful
October 11, 2021
A miserable, sad affair from the moment Clov walks in to the moment Hamm stops talking. There is the same old Beckett experience: confusion and angst, an uncomfortable bubbling feeling that hits a peak at a certain point, then it all falls into place. You don’t put things together right away… how could you? The characters are blabbering about “nothing”. And they continue to blabber about “nothing”. It’s just about whether that “nothing” turns into “something” for you, and it did for me. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing…
As for Act Without Words (and it only needs an aside): Christ. A mime. Depression in 4 pages. Reaching for your dream constantly, only to have it snatched away at the last moment.
As for Act Without Words (and it only needs an aside): Christ. A mime. Depression in 4 pages. Reaching for your dream constantly, only to have it snatched away at the last moment.
January 10, 2018
All life long, the same questions, the same answers.
I read this in a hospital.
This morning.
The patient was someone I don't know very well.
It was thought that my presence would afford authority.
I am not sure about that.
The senseless ritual of life is unveiled in a drab flourish by Beckett. I love it. This isn't is powerful as Godot. There's no hope here -- for other than Death. There is memory and within that there's reverie, there's a lilting note which conveys. Our chores elongate without purification. I can sit and ponder the motives of the many gathered in this plush internment. I can also sit and not ponder.
I read this in a hospital.
This morning.
The patient was someone I don't know very well.
It was thought that my presence would afford authority.
I am not sure about that.
The senseless ritual of life is unveiled in a drab flourish by Beckett. I love it. This isn't is powerful as Godot. There's no hope here -- for other than Death. There is memory and within that there's reverie, there's a lilting note which conveys. Our chores elongate without purification. I can sit and ponder the motives of the many gathered in this plush internment. I can also sit and not ponder.
December 12, 2015
December of Drama 2015, day eleven
"I love order. It's my dream. A world where all would be silent and still, and each thing in its last place, under the last dust."
Begin rant: I'm getting a little tired, alright, a lot tired, of people ignoring the conclusions reached by literature and philosophy. Conclusions? Yes-- there is actually philosophy (pessimism) that moves in straight lines instead of wearisome, wool-gathering circles. And there is literature that offers some actionable intelligence, so to speak. Many of us in the so-called modern age seem to recognize that all this human suffering and death is meaningless, useless, and that to limit the body count we'd be better off going extinct sooner rather than later, and yet most people continue to inject fuel into the vast, malignant, death-engine by procreating. In all honesty, when I see "damned progenitors!" on the street, assuming their spawn to be biologically their own rather than adopted, I feel like I'm seeing cavemen. Atavistic human beings, who must not know any better, mindlessly obeying animal instinct. I ought to be even more pessimistic and just accept that the idiots will inherit the earth, and that most humans will repeat history, every minute of the day, forever and ever amen. "Intelligent life" is an oxymoron; any intelligent species would opt out of this rigged game.
It's really the inconsistency that gets to me. When you hear calls for "peace on Earth" this holiday season, bear in mind what that really means: silence. Extinction. The dinosaurs are at peace. As long as we are still around, there won't ever be peace-- by which I mean an end to suffering. If taken to mean the absence of war or conflict, then another kind of suffering would obtain: boredom. We're in love with conflict. To pull a Cormac McCarthy quote, "War is God." If we truly wanted an end to violence, everyone would have to be sterilized, as I chose to be, and wait for death to finish us off. Even with a series as popular as Game of Thrones, when you get the line, "There is only one hell: the one we're living in now," people all knowingly nod their heads, yet by and large they continue to incarcerate unwillingly-created entities in that hell, or support the practice. It's madness. In truth I ought to just laugh at the absurdity of it all, but part of me can't help trying to point it out. End rant.
This play is over fifty years old, but it's grown in bitter strength due to the fact that we're still, shockingly, playing the same tired game. I didn't rate it five stars merely because it reinforces a belief I've held for years, but more for its effectiveness in dramatizing it. Is there any hope for the human race to become the first species to nobly choose extinction, rather than blundering into it? Time will tell.
Recommendation dump: The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence, Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West
"I love order. It's my dream. A world where all would be silent and still, and each thing in its last place, under the last dust."
Begin rant: I'm getting a little tired, alright, a lot tired, of people ignoring the conclusions reached by literature and philosophy. Conclusions? Yes-- there is actually philosophy (pessimism) that moves in straight lines instead of wearisome, wool-gathering circles. And there is literature that offers some actionable intelligence, so to speak. Many of us in the so-called modern age seem to recognize that all this human suffering and death is meaningless, useless, and that to limit the body count we'd be better off going extinct sooner rather than later, and yet most people continue to inject fuel into the vast, malignant, death-engine by procreating. In all honesty, when I see "damned progenitors!" on the street, assuming their spawn to be biologically their own rather than adopted, I feel like I'm seeing cavemen. Atavistic human beings, who must not know any better, mindlessly obeying animal instinct. I ought to be even more pessimistic and just accept that the idiots will inherit the earth, and that most humans will repeat history, every minute of the day, forever and ever amen. "Intelligent life" is an oxymoron; any intelligent species would opt out of this rigged game.
It's really the inconsistency that gets to me. When you hear calls for "peace on Earth" this holiday season, bear in mind what that really means: silence. Extinction. The dinosaurs are at peace. As long as we are still around, there won't ever be peace-- by which I mean an end to suffering. If taken to mean the absence of war or conflict, then another kind of suffering would obtain: boredom. We're in love with conflict. To pull a Cormac McCarthy quote, "War is God." If we truly wanted an end to violence, everyone would have to be sterilized, as I chose to be, and wait for death to finish us off. Even with a series as popular as Game of Thrones, when you get the line, "There is only one hell: the one we're living in now," people all knowingly nod their heads, yet by and large they continue to incarcerate unwillingly-created entities in that hell, or support the practice. It's madness. In truth I ought to just laugh at the absurdity of it all, but part of me can't help trying to point it out. End rant.
This play is over fifty years old, but it's grown in bitter strength due to the fact that we're still, shockingly, playing the same tired game. I didn't rate it five stars merely because it reinforces a belief I've held for years, but more for its effectiveness in dramatizing it. Is there any hope for the human race to become the first species to nobly choose extinction, rather than blundering into it? Time will tell.
Recommendation dump: The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence, Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West
October 1, 2024
Bleak and dark. Frighteningly depressing. Need to find a proper version of Endgame to watch so I can feel bad all over again 😂 Excellent play! I mean it!
Thanks to Helga for the suggestion
Thanks to Helga for the suggestion
February 12, 2020
falls into cliche by envisioning the end of the world before the end of capitalism.
July 21, 2024
When I am old and blind and resigned to never leaving my favorite chair, I too will sleep with a sheet draped over my entire body like I am a piece of valuable furniture in storage.
August 10, 2016
Much has been said about Endgame and the existing literature has almost exhausted its interpretive capacity. But for me, Act Without Words is a far grater work in its brevity and universality. I loved its each and every moment... quite epiphanical... It dramatizes the way in which we, as human beings, are trapped by elemental workings of life and how nature creates mirages of desire and fulfillment only to leave us frustrated and unsatisfied. The moment when the only character refuses to play according to 'preset' rules of the game by reacting indifferently to the mirage of 'the water' was very thrilling to me and was rebelliously illuminating.
May 13, 2015
Brilliant poetry. Embrace the pauses and sit in the work until it becomes uncomfortable. That's the only way to truly enjoy Beckett.
November 23, 2011
Endgame feels, in many ways, like the same play as Waiting for Godot. Both plays use the same pair of, respectively, clever and dim-witted primary characters (Vladimir and Estragon in Godot, and Hamm and Clov in Endgame) presented in a gray, macabre setting. Knowing this makes it very easy to understand how Beckett structured these two plays, and how his character relations explicate themes--cerebral discord allows extensive and recursive banter. Personally, I didn't love the play. I've tried to like Beckett, and I do, but I can never seem to get over the weird kind of dreamy aesthetic he uses in his writing. I tried his novels, thinking his prose would be less obscure, but they were just as strange. I find myself only appreciating him for his wonderful dark humor.
I'll admit, though, that this play presents one of my favorite themes in all of literature: the dignity of suffering. Notice how tribulation is addressed in certain lines:--for example, "Can there be misery loftier than mine?" "Lofty" isn't the word most people would think of to describe their unhappiness. There are several other quotes from this play that toy with the same idea, but my favorite one would have to be this:
Hamm: What's he doing?
(CLOV raises lid of NAGG's bin, stoops, looks into it. Pause.)
Clov: He's crying.
(He closes lid, straightens up)
Hamm: Then he's living.
Probably my favorite Beckett line ever. As if to say that the hurt many of us feel on the point of existence affords us more than we realize, and that to feel pain more acutely means to feel life more acutely.
I'll admit, though, that this play presents one of my favorite themes in all of literature: the dignity of suffering. Notice how tribulation is addressed in certain lines:--for example, "Can there be misery loftier than mine?" "Lofty" isn't the word most people would think of to describe their unhappiness. There are several other quotes from this play that toy with the same idea, but my favorite one would have to be this:
Hamm: What's he doing?
(CLOV raises lid of NAGG's bin, stoops, looks into it. Pause.)
Clov: He's crying.
(He closes lid, straightens up)
Hamm: Then he's living.
Probably my favorite Beckett line ever. As if to say that the hurt many of us feel on the point of existence affords us more than we realize, and that to feel pain more acutely means to feel life more acutely.
August 27, 2016
First read-through: pretty much nothing made sense. It was a swirl of madness and confusion.
Rereading it reveals layers and depth that elicits examination and interaction with Beckett's (post)modern themes of meaninglessness and disorder. He makes references to The Waste Land, which I thought was interesting. While Eliot ultimately reaches Christian conclusions, Endgame circles around nihilistic ideologies of nothingness.
I love this play for what questions it sparks within me. Reading it from a Christian perspective gives me peace, and I enjoy it thoroughly. However, the great problem with postmodernism (which Beckett has been considered one of the firsts), is that it's an ideology which leads to hopelessness and despair (as it furthered the ideas of Nihilism and Modernism). The implication in the end of Endgame is that their lives will continue to circle back around with no escape.
I recommend this play for writers or people who like to ask existential questions.
Review written: Dec 28, 2013
Rereading it reveals layers and depth that elicits examination and interaction with Beckett's (post)modern themes of meaninglessness and disorder. He makes references to The Waste Land, which I thought was interesting. While Eliot ultimately reaches Christian conclusions, Endgame circles around nihilistic ideologies of nothingness.
I love this play for what questions it sparks within me. Reading it from a Christian perspective gives me peace, and I enjoy it thoroughly. However, the great problem with postmodernism (which Beckett has been considered one of the firsts), is that it's an ideology which leads to hopelessness and despair (as it furthered the ideas of Nihilism and Modernism). The implication in the end of Endgame is that their lives will continue to circle back around with no escape.
I recommend this play for writers or people who like to ask existential questions.
Review written: Dec 28, 2013
January 17, 2022
When Samuel Beckett died in 1989, the Brisbane Arts theatre did an early week tribute show, with these two and two other shorter plays. I was fortunate to be directed in 'Act without Words' by Fred Wessely, a stalwart of Brisbane theatre. 'Act' is a physical theatre show, completely mimed, and was the first non-singing role I ever played. I also got to be Prompt for 'Endgame', and Beckett's absurdist, non-sequential lines kept me very busy in the prompt box. It's fascinating that writers who lived through the horrors of war often write this bleak, existentialist stuff, it's like the joy of life has been stamped out of them, hope has died in their PTSD world.
August 29, 2024
«Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that.»
January 14, 2021
The end is in the beginning and yet you go on...
Absent, always. It all happened without me. I don't know what's happened.
Nature has forgotten us. But we breathe, we change! We lose our hair. Our teeth! Our blooms! Our ideals!
Absent, always. It all happened without me. I don't know what's happened.
Nature has forgotten us. But we breathe, we change! We lose our hair. Our teeth! Our blooms! Our ideals!
August 14, 2015
Sorry, no comments except to say just READ it please!
September 8, 2015
The tip of the end is the meaninglessness and salvation of another beginning.
April 2, 2019
it's a play, so it's meant to be seen in a theatre, and i Need to see it on stage. but overall i loved this description of an absurd apocalypse.
January 6, 2024
Endgame is the second play I’ve read by Samuel Beckett. I read “Waiting for Godot” when I was 17 amidst my reading several plays of that era and genre such as “The Rhinoceros,” “The Dumb Waiter” and “No Exit.” I enjoyed those plays at the time. Since then I have avoided reading such plays and have found that my youthful willingness to examine absurdist material has nearly evaporated in the face of my preference for more straightforward and realistic expressions of such themes. I say nearly because I found myself enjoying reading “Endgame.”
I did enter reading the play with some knowledge of the Theater of the Absurd and their basic theme of the fundamental absurdity of choosing to live one's life normally when confronted with an uncaring and meaningless universe that the plays portray through non-real or ‘absurd’ settings and dialogue. Based on my experience, I did not expect to entirely grasp whatever ‘plot’ was occurring or the themes being addressed by Beckett.
The play involves two main characters, Hamm, a blind seemingly paralyzed, abusive and dominating aging man, and Clov, his hyperactive and dithering aide. Also appearing are Hamm’s elderly parents, Nagg and Nell.
The play’s action takes place in a large room in what looks like an abondoned dwelling. I could not determine the time and place of the setting. Wikipedia describes the setting as a large room in “an abandoned house in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.”
On stage, Hamm is sitting in an armchair in the middle of the room while Clov spends the play wandering between standing by Hamm’s chair and climbing ladders near two windows in the room often using a telescope to look out upon the outside world. Nagg and Nell live in two garbage cans, called ashbins in the stage directions, located in the back of the room/stage set.
The play’s dialogue mostly consisted of Hamm verbally abusing or instructing Clov or his parents while also relating a story of how Clov came to be with him. There is also dramatic tension over whether Clov will choose to leave Hamm.
I thought the dialogue, even when I was unsure of the its direction, was very well-done and quite compelling. The dialogue addressed themes I expect to see in absurdist dramas. In the words of Wikipedia, I thought the play successfully depicts an expression of existential angst and despair and depicts Beckett's philosophical worldview, namely the extreme futility of human life and the inescapable dissatisfaction and decay intrinsic to it. That sounds about right.
I also managed to view a 2005 TV version of the play starring the late Michael Gambon as Hamm and the talented David Thewlis as Clov. They both were excellent in their roles and my comprehension and appreciation of the written play was greatly enhanced by my watching and not just reading the play.
I rate this play as 4 stars
I did enter reading the play with some knowledge of the Theater of the Absurd and their basic theme of the fundamental absurdity of choosing to live one's life normally when confronted with an uncaring and meaningless universe that the plays portray through non-real or ‘absurd’ settings and dialogue. Based on my experience, I did not expect to entirely grasp whatever ‘plot’ was occurring or the themes being addressed by Beckett.
The play involves two main characters, Hamm, a blind seemingly paralyzed, abusive and dominating aging man, and Clov, his hyperactive and dithering aide. Also appearing are Hamm’s elderly parents, Nagg and Nell.
The play’s action takes place in a large room in what looks like an abondoned dwelling. I could not determine the time and place of the setting. Wikipedia describes the setting as a large room in “an abandoned house in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.”
On stage, Hamm is sitting in an armchair in the middle of the room while Clov spends the play wandering between standing by Hamm’s chair and climbing ladders near two windows in the room often using a telescope to look out upon the outside world. Nagg and Nell live in two garbage cans, called ashbins in the stage directions, located in the back of the room/stage set.
The play’s dialogue mostly consisted of Hamm verbally abusing or instructing Clov or his parents while also relating a story of how Clov came to be with him. There is also dramatic tension over whether Clov will choose to leave Hamm.
I thought the dialogue, even when I was unsure of the its direction, was very well-done and quite compelling. The dialogue addressed themes I expect to see in absurdist dramas. In the words of Wikipedia, I thought the play successfully depicts an expression of existential angst and despair and depicts Beckett's philosophical worldview, namely the extreme futility of human life and the inescapable dissatisfaction and decay intrinsic to it. That sounds about right.
I also managed to view a 2005 TV version of the play starring the late Michael Gambon as Hamm and the talented David Thewlis as Clov. They both were excellent in their roles and my comprehension and appreciation of the written play was greatly enhanced by my watching and not just reading the play.
I rate this play as 4 stars
February 2, 2023
I was still getting used to the way it was written in full dialogue script as a new reader of Plays, but it didn't become an issue devouring this book, and I truly enjoyed it.
It's not every day that you come across some strange individuals in a trash bin. Yes, it was that weird, and reading between the lines on this one was really challenging. After finishing the book, I immediately watched the actual play and even the analytical reviews, so when I learned the deeper connotations behind some of the lines, for God's sake, I was stunned. SPEECHLESS. Do not underestimate this short book because it will keep you thinking for a long time.
To put it bluntly, nothing and everything makes sense in this story. Now I don't know what to do with all these questions in my head.
I think I need some serious therapy.
It's not every day that you come across some strange individuals in a trash bin. Yes, it was that weird, and reading between the lines on this one was really challenging. After finishing the book, I immediately watched the actual play and even the analytical reviews, so when I learned the deeper connotations behind some of the lines, for God's sake, I was stunned. SPEECHLESS. Do not underestimate this short book because it will keep you thinking for a long time.
To put it bluntly, nothing and everything makes sense in this story. Now I don't know what to do with all these questions in my head.
I think I need some serious therapy.
August 7, 2023
What just happened
Idk but whatever I just read was Beckett as hell. And by that I mean depresso
Idk but whatever I just read was Beckett as hell. And by that I mean depresso
May 20, 2022
whatever
October 29, 2024
“The end is terrific! I prefer the middle.”
Honestly, I was lost the entire time.
Honestly, I was lost the entire time.
September 11, 2021
In ‘Waiting For Godot’, Beckett’s characters wait for a man who symbolizes God or a higher meaning who will never arrive, making clear his view on life’s meaninglessness. In ‘Endgame’, with their bodies broken down, his characters live out their colorless, boring days, simply waiting for death. He holds an uncomfortable mirror up to the human condition and the end of our lives, and does so in an artistic way.
It’s symbolic that one of them can’t see or stand, and another can’t sit, and sees nothing but grayness or ‘zero’ out of their room’s high windows. The parents of the one live literally in ashbins. We will all die, Beckett reminds us grimly, many no longer enjoying life in the slightest when it happens, and some of us will cling to another simply because of that age-old adage, ‘misery loves company’.
One wonders if the events of the play, as simple as they are, with repetitious seemingly interior dialogue, are all in this one old and beaten down individual’s mind at the end of his life - his memories of his parents, his fear that his partner and caretaker will leave him, and his bitterness over the futility of life.
The play has a dark and pessimistic view of humanity as well. In one of several moments which seem post-apocalyptic, a flea should be caught because “humanity might start from there all over again,” which would be a bad thing, presumably because our lives are so shallow, meaningless, and filled with pain.
There are some moments of levity in Beckett’s wordplay, e.g. the story of the tailor who apologizes among other things for having “made a hash of the crotch”, as well as an elder “sucking his biscuit”, and the admonition to “Get out of here and love one another! Lick your neighbor as yourself!” However, I found these to be few and far between.
The story is one of recognizing our fate to suffer (“He’s crying” / “Then he’s living.”), and have no real hope (“Use your head, can’t you, use your head, you’re on earth, there’s no cure for that!”). It’s also one of cautionary warning (“One day you’ll be blind, like me. You’ll be sitting there, a speck in the void, in the dark, for ever, like me.”)
The trouble I have with the play is it's rather bleak. Life does end in degradation and suffering, but we can still lead full, beautiful lives, connect to others, and be happy in spite of the smallness of humanity, and life’s absurd daily repetition. Maybe his play is a cautionary warning about the end that awaits us all, and that we should go outside in the sunshine and enjoy our time while we can, but it just comes across as so grim and pessimistic, it's harder for me to fully enjoy.
It’s symbolic that one of them can’t see or stand, and another can’t sit, and sees nothing but grayness or ‘zero’ out of their room’s high windows. The parents of the one live literally in ashbins. We will all die, Beckett reminds us grimly, many no longer enjoying life in the slightest when it happens, and some of us will cling to another simply because of that age-old adage, ‘misery loves company’.
One wonders if the events of the play, as simple as they are, with repetitious seemingly interior dialogue, are all in this one old and beaten down individual’s mind at the end of his life - his memories of his parents, his fear that his partner and caretaker will leave him, and his bitterness over the futility of life.
The play has a dark and pessimistic view of humanity as well. In one of several moments which seem post-apocalyptic, a flea should be caught because “humanity might start from there all over again,” which would be a bad thing, presumably because our lives are so shallow, meaningless, and filled with pain.
There are some moments of levity in Beckett’s wordplay, e.g. the story of the tailor who apologizes among other things for having “made a hash of the crotch”, as well as an elder “sucking his biscuit”, and the admonition to “Get out of here and love one another! Lick your neighbor as yourself!” However, I found these to be few and far between.
The story is one of recognizing our fate to suffer (“He’s crying” / “Then he’s living.”), and have no real hope (“Use your head, can’t you, use your head, you’re on earth, there’s no cure for that!”). It’s also one of cautionary warning (“One day you’ll be blind, like me. You’ll be sitting there, a speck in the void, in the dark, for ever, like me.”)
The trouble I have with the play is it's rather bleak. Life does end in degradation and suffering, but we can still lead full, beautiful lives, connect to others, and be happy in spite of the smallness of humanity, and life’s absurd daily repetition. Maybe his play is a cautionary warning about the end that awaits us all, and that we should go outside in the sunshine and enjoy our time while we can, but it just comes across as so grim and pessimistic, it's harder for me to fully enjoy.
June 29, 2014
Last month, I read Samuel Beckett's Endgame (3 stars) so I am just reviewing the second play included in this book, Act Without Words. I still liked it or it is a notch better than Endgame but not as good as Waiting for Godot (4 stars). Although there is also the element of suicide here particularly the thought of it and the rebelliousness when the narrator did not move at the ending scene when the carafe or water was dangled within his reach right in front of him.
If Waiting for Godot (4 stars) and Endgame (3 stars) are stage plays and All That Fall and Other Plays for Radio and Screen. by Samuel Beckett (2 stars) are radio plays, Act Without Words is a mime or a play whose story is told via action. So, the play is short with almost no words yet if you check Wiki, it can run from 1 to 2 hours depending on the interpretation of the stage director.
The story is about a man stranded in an island or a forest by himself and he is in need of water and food. These are either dropped to him from above but the water in taken back up whenever he tries to reach for it. According to Wiki, this was Beckett way of retelling the Greek mythology story of Tantalus who is in the center of a pond that whenever he bends to drink, the water level recedes. It is funny to imagine that and the scenes in this plan and I could only dream that someday I'll have the chance to actually see this and Beckett plays. It should be awesome.
The more I read Beckett's work, the more I admire him. All of his works are brilliant and he seemed to have the versatility to try different formats and ideas in his works.
If Waiting for Godot (4 stars) and Endgame (3 stars) are stage plays and All That Fall and Other Plays for Radio and Screen. by Samuel Beckett (2 stars) are radio plays, Act Without Words is a mime or a play whose story is told via action. So, the play is short with almost no words yet if you check Wiki, it can run from 1 to 2 hours depending on the interpretation of the stage director.
The story is about a man stranded in an island or a forest by himself and he is in need of water and food. These are either dropped to him from above but the water in taken back up whenever he tries to reach for it. According to Wiki, this was Beckett way of retelling the Greek mythology story of Tantalus who is in the center of a pond that whenever he bends to drink, the water level recedes. It is funny to imagine that and the scenes in this plan and I could only dream that someday I'll have the chance to actually see this and Beckett plays. It should be awesome.
The more I read Beckett's work, the more I admire him. All of his works are brilliant and he seemed to have the versatility to try different formats and ideas in his works.
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January 10, 2008This review probably says something about my intellect, but if it does, I don’t really care. Holy pretentious metaphysics, stay away from this drama. Artistes might tell you this is Beckett’s finest masterpiece. My take is that I am making for myself a permanent rule: if the words “French”, “surreal”, and “existential” are words that describe the play or book I should leave it at the bookstore, and run away as fast as possible. The play begins with a man sitting in a recliner center stage covered by a sheet, while two other characters are hidden inside two large trashcans stage left. The character in the recliner and another character have an exchange about bicycle wheels and painkillers and pap. The two characters inside the trashcans have an exchange about biscuits and love and some shared memory about a trip. And after that first scene, the play doesn’t make any more sense. I think the play is musing upon suffering and death, but I can’t tell if that is actually the play, or what I wished for as I read through it. I read through it once, and tried rereading it again before stopping halfway because the second time through wasn’t making it any less nonsensical. Worst book of the year for me.
May 3, 2008
I saw a wonderful performance of this play not too long ago and as I was rereading it I had the clearest image of the actors on the stage. As with Godot, the sparse settings, and the physicality of the acting, carry the emotion as much as the dialog. And this comes through in the writing via the stage directions. Beckett pays as much attention to choreography, carefully scripting the movements of the actors, as he does the interplay of their dialog. Contrast this with, say, Hamlet, where virtually no stage direction is given. Shakespeare leaves it up to the actors/director to determine how to deliver the lines and what to do while delivering them. Beckett on the other hand is more like the novelist—well, he was one—in that he wants to control the action, the emotional texture, doesn’t want to leave all that up to the actors/director’s interpretation. An interesting feature of the text versus the play is the repetition of the stage direction “(Pause.)” Seeing it repeated on the page over and over has a hypnotic quality that doesn’t happen on the stage. On the stage those pauses have the effect of creating expectation.
August 23, 2018
Despite Endgame having similarities with Waiting for Godot, it somehow has a different vibe. Beckett provides more context to the characters and their actions, and I feel as though I my interpretations are more linear; there is less variety among alternative scenarios. This is both a good and a bad thing. The play has a type of closure, whereas Waiting for Godot is followed by a sense of anxiety in me. However, that anxiety is the exact thing that makes Waiting for Godot prevail each time. I appreciate the subtle contrast between the two.
Act Without Words isn't particularly entertaining to read, however, imagining it in theaters is what brings it to life - since, in fact, it is life. It was either Beckett that was inspired by others, or others by him; either which way, whenever I encounter such a reenactment, it leaves a strong impression.
Act Without Words isn't particularly entertaining to read, however, imagining it in theaters is what brings it to life - since, in fact, it is life. It was either Beckett that was inspired by others, or others by him; either which way, whenever I encounter such a reenactment, it leaves a strong impression.
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