Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Irish Arts Center presents Garry Hynes’ muscular, incisively-acted production of Beckett’s ENDGAME

• By drediman
• November 20, 2025
• No Comments

It’s been quite the fall for Samuel Beckett, whose plays have received a number of notable New York productions over the last month or so. Given these fraught post-pandemic times we live in — during which many of us have been posing existential questions — this proliferation isn’t surprising. On Broadway, it all started with Jamie Lloyd’s starry revival of Waiting for Godot with Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter. Then there was Vicky Featherstone’s clear-eyed production of Krapp’s Last Tape featuring the great Stephen Rea, which played NYU Skirball in October. Now over at Irish Arts Center in Hell’s Kitchen, there’s Garry Hynes’ Druid production of Endgame, which I recently had the opportunity to catch before it shutters this weekend.

It’s no secret that Hynes is a masterful director — just look at her long and illustrious career — and it shows here in how intelligently she’s interpreted the classic play‘s prescriptive stage directions, which the Beckett estate is keen on having licensed productions follow faithfully. As staged on scenic designer Francis O’Connor‘s imposing and evocative set, this is a muscular, insightful Endgame that easily gets to the heart of the play without having to resort to fussy theatricality. The production features some fascinating power dynamics. In particular, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more evenly matched Hamm and Clov as how they’re portrayed here. From the top, I got the strong impression that they were merely role playing, tragically reducing their existence to a make believe game of cat and mouse. Matters are exacerbated by underlining the characters’ isolation and lack of willingness to truly listen to each other, uncannily mirroring onstage the world we currently live in.

Hynes has also elicited some rather incisive performances from her excellent Irish cast (the production hails from Galway, where Druid Theatre Company is based), who give gripping performances that reside at the intersection of hilarity, vulnerability, and angst. Led by Rory Nolan and Aaron Monaghan as the master/servant duo of Hamm and Clov, the actors don’t overly mine humor from the play — as is often the case — instead letting the human emotions naturally arise from the text. Unlike some productions that I’ve seen, these characters are very much alive and kicking rather than knocking on death’s door, which lends a robustness to their playfully fickle but often abusive exchanges. This also applies to Hamm’s elderly trash bin-ridden parents, who are played with amusing broadness by Bosco Hogan and Marie Mullen to oddly life-affirming effect.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

ENDGAME
Off-Broadway, Play
Irish Arts Center
1 hour, 25 minutes (without an intermission)
Through December 23