Page 98 [98]
SHOES THAT ARE LEFT BEHIND: GÁBOR TOMPAS BECKETT HERITAGE
are weeping. Ihis space has no access to the outside world: although Clov opens
the two small, round windows occasionally, they let in no draught, sound, or
light of any kind. Metal, which seems to be the only surviving material, fills the
entire evening starting from the convex, sharp-edged, silver letters of A játszma
vége [Endgame] on the front page of the theatre program to the aluminium
ladder, Hamm’s three-legged dog made of a massive, long metal spring, and
the large metallic ventilation pipes that run along the walls so that some air can
enter the inhabitants’ maximum security prison. Also, in the opening tableau,
Hamm and his parents are covered with aluminium foil before the unveiling.
However, the bins themselves are transparent with circular, metallic tops, and
some elastic fabric in the middle in which Nagg and Nell spend their days like
two chrysalids in an intermediate state.
The tension between the characters, the war between Hamm and Clov,
which Beckett called the “nucleus of the play” during the 1967 Schiller
Theater rehearsals,*° works palpably throughout. Jozsef Bird’s Hamm, the
actor and the writer, sitting in a red armchair on casters, is just one step
away from finishing his story at the start of the action, but of course this
last step may last for decades. However, it is Laszl6 Zsolt Bartha’s Clov who
grows up in front of our eyes, as he, through Hamm’s cruelty and his own
increasing anger, gradually understands his own situation. Tompa and Visky
resourcefully amplify the tension in Clov; the ladder that he carries around,
and at times almost throws at Hamm, is a constant signifier of his temper.
There are certain hate-mimes that he keeps doing behind the master’s back,
and one can see how his irritation rises as he receives from Hamm one
laborious task after another. At one point, when Hamm talks about his dog
on the ground looking at him, begging him for a walk, Clov kneels down to
Hamm’s stroking hand, pretending to be an obedient dog, understanding that
he is being treated like a dog. From that moment, there is no turning back.
The rhythm of the production is sharp, precise, following Beckett’s
instructions — it drives Hamm to the verge of finishing his Opus Magnum, and
drives Clov into becoming the second generation that questions the first (or the
third that questions the second, rather), and reproaches him for his past sins
and mistakes. It is through this process that Clov finally steps in exactly at the
point where Hamm interrupts his story. In Tompa’s interpretation, when Clov
finally goes up the ladder and perhaps catches sight of a boy, it is a provocation
towards Hamm, an open admission of being aware of his own past, of where
he had come from and how he, Clov, had entered Hamm’s service, which might
bear a strong connection to the man who asked for some bread for his son on a
Christmas Eve. At the moment Clov tells Hamm about the boy, Hamm’s tone
35 Gontarski, S. E. (ed.): The Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett, Volume II, Endgame,
London, Faber and Faber, 1992, 50.
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