Endgame
Set Design
Haam: Am I right in the center? Clov: I'll measure it.
Haam: More or less! More or less! Clov: There!
Haam: I'm more or less in the center?
Clov: I'd say so.
Haam: You'd say so! Put me right in the center!
In this cheery playground structure, designed to be portable and easily installed for town festivities, Clov winds the hand lever, Hamm always remaining equidistance from the center, until Hamm is convinced that he is indeed back in center of the room. Such is precisely the futile nature of Beckett’s absurdist play. The four characters, all unable to move, except Clov, coexist in this space, bound not by love, but by habit, boredom, antagonism, and the lack of life or death. Nagg and Nell, constantly argue and aggravate each other, but are forever separated by distance. Clov frequently threatens to leave Hamm but does not to do so. In the end, they are simply cogs of this absurd mechanical structure, squabbling into the vacuum for all of eternity.
