| I'm gonna post my drama, I mean "Theater Arts", paper that's on this wierd-ass play called Endgme by Samuel Beckett. It's from the genre The Theater of the Absurd and well the name says enough. Read on. It's quite long don't feel the need to read it all...or at all.
Samuel Beckett�s play Endgame is certainly every bit a piece of drama written for the theater of the absurd. Endgame embodies all the elements of theater of the absurd and makes for interesting staging that surely must be quite imaginative and innovative. This play by Beckett takes the literal meaning of how absurd was meant to be used, by the existentialist and philosopher Albert Camus, and uses it as a premise for a theatrical work. The results are astonishing and intriguing.
The theater of the absurd has its basis in existentialism and the belief that this life is somewhat meaningless. Or, rather, that it�s meaning is too complex and out of reach for us, as humans, to grasp. In Endgame this same theme can be seen when Hamm considers ending, or asking Clov to end, his life but then ultimately each time lets it go. He is as Sartre as believed at the crossroads of life, between being and nothingness. This is exactly where Hamm is and how Beckett describes him and would have him clothed simply reinforces this. Hamm is confined to a wheelchair, blind. He is covered in a white sheet, almost ghost or angel-like in color and he has on dark glasses on since he can no longer see. He is on this earth but does not have the basic functions of one on this earth such as walking, seeing, and being able to care for one�s self. His life is essentially absurd and meaningless since really he is not living. Hamm is merely existing.
Beckett also does a wonderful job of expressing theatrically the element of having no beginning, no middle and no end. Unlike the traditional play which has a concrete plot line, plays in the genre of the theater of the absurd have no absolute plot. In the confines, of what we as humans have created, the time line, it obviously has a commencement, middle and conclusion, else the audience would remain indefinitely. However, what happens during the play can be repeated over and over again, never-ending. For all we know it has been happening before the audience began to watch and will continue to occur ever after. Theater of the absurd shares this concept of cycles and non-linear time with the literature genre of magical realism. Time is happening all at once and everyone�s story is the same. The same with how the little boy out in the darkness at the "end" of the play is similar to the little boy Hamm claims to have taken in and we as the audience, though not directly told, assume is Clov. Their story is "the same" and on going, never-ending, without beginning, middle or end.
The theater of the absurd often takes on a fantastic, dream-like and nightmarish quality. The staging is not supposed to appear as reality but rather the inner reality of the playwright and their emotional perception of life. Beckett�s anxiety over this life, it�s meaning and it�s conclusion is clearly realized in the set design as he envisioned it. It also maintains the shock and absurdity meant to be portrayed to the audience in the performing of a play from the theater of the absurd. The set is meant to be enclosed by four walls. This is not very practical for staging. Here an open theater with seating on all sides and pretend walls might work, or a regular stage would work, but the idea of the fourth wall being removed would have to be emphasized a bit more. The enclosure created by four walls does however, benefit the play due to the symbolic value. Closed spaces can create a feeling of being trapped, claustrophobia, and anxiety. Anxiety at being trapped in this meaningless life is a spin-off of the theater of the absurd and part of Beckett�s emotional perceptions. All through the play there are enclosures and confines, weather manifested physically, such as Hamm�s wheelchair, or mentally, where Hamm and Clov cannot leave each other, they are bound. Some other confined space include, the ashbins in which Hamm�s parents, Nagg and Nell, reside, and the enclosed darkness experienced by Hamm as he is blind. Obviously, Beckett meant to portray the anxiousness associated with this life, Hamm�s inability to chose life or death, perfectly embodies this. He wants to kill his pain by taking medication yet will not, in the end, chose death as the ultimate means to stop his pain in this life. He is anxious for it to end and at the same time will not take measures to do so.
Godlessness, is yet another characteristic of the theater of the absurd. The theater of the absurd, since its origins date to post-World War II, is credited with being a reaction to the lack of religion and spirituality in the world and modern life. This very specifically turns up in Beckett�s play when Hamm says, "Let us pray to God". Clov and Nagg at first offer objections and then bow their heads. However, after a moment of silence all three are dissatisfied with the results or, perhaps more accurately, the lack there of. After the Second World War a sort of new reality set in, one where God was less important since he had allowed such atrocities and thus the theater, more specifically - of the absurd, reflected that. The theater of the absurd tries to shock man back to a time where he was awed in everything he saw and revered the cosmos, instead of the dry and rote life that we had come to lead.
In addition, Samuel Beckett�s use of language in Endgame reflects the concept in the theater of the absurd about the unreliability and insufficiency of language as a means of communication. Language, according to the theater of the absurd, had become typical and then meaningless. It would appear that Endgame serves to prove and to disprove this. There is a complete lack of language in Endgame. This proves the absurdity of language. There is really no need for speaking and communicating with more than a few words, if not syllables at a time. Not to mention, the pauses that plague the conversations. The use of language is disjointed and nearly pointless as a means of speaking. However, Beckett does go on to prove the importance of language as a means of human interaction and how one depends upon his fellow man. Hamm constantly calls out to Clov to come when he needs merely to feel another�s presence. Clov may serve no greater purpose than to have someone with whom to communicate so that he may feel alive and thus that his life is perhaps not nothingness. Clov once called out to his father at the end of the play and the audience is reminded of earlier when Nagg spoke of how as a child Hamm called for him and oddly enough not for his mother, again the concept of time being cyclical. But Nagg does not answer, in earlier days because he chose not to and then later on because he could not hear Hamm�s cries.
Endgame is the very epitome of the theater of the absurd. The perfect embodiment of its beliefs and concepts. Samuel Beckett was successful in his endeavor to create a play which shook the core of its human audience and portrayed the ideals of this genre. The concepts of cycles, godlessness, absurdity of language and the ultimate meaninglessness of life are all contained in this play with the effect of an innovative and engaging piece of drama, which achieves the ultimate goal of the theater of the absurd to cause one to think. |