SAMUEL BECKETT’S work has been called many things: modernist, minimalist, avant-garde, tragicomic, and a part of the Theater of the Absurd. His plays (and novels) generally offered a bleak worldview that questioned the meaning of human existence and found relief primarily in gallows humor and satire.
So it might not seem a stretch to envision two characters from one of his most famous plays as craggy, white-haired puppets.
It certainly doesn’t to Sheryl Stoodley, the longtime artistic director of Serious Play!, the Valley theater ensemble that is producing Beckett’s 1957 play, “Endgame,” in Northampton March 17-19 and in Holyoke March 31-April 2. In this new version, called the “Endgame Project,” two of the four roles normally handled by live actors will be embodied by puppets.
In the original script by the Irish novelist, playwright and poet, the two characters, Nagg and Nell, appear onstage in garbage cans, with only their heads and upper torsos visible. So in using puppets that pop out of drawers from a large cupboard on stage, the new production of “Endgame” is staying true to Beckett’s overall vision, while ideally offering a fresh look at the relationship of the characters, Stoodley says.
“I think [the production] is very respectful of the original play,” Stoodley, of Northampton, said in a recent interview. “We haven’t changed one line of the script, but in using puppets for Nagg and Nell, I feel like we’re trying to get at the essence of what [Beckett] was exploring.”
The one-act play, set in a single room near an unidentified seashore in the aftermath of an apocalyptic event, is centered on the relationship between Hamm, a cantankerous elderly man who’s blind and confined to a wheelchair, and his servant, Clov, a younger man who appears to be Hamm’s adopted son; the connection is implied though not clearly stated in the play. The secondary characters of Nagg and Nell, meanwhile, are Hamm’s father and mother, respectively.
In the play, a meditation on the human condition and the approach of death, Hamm consistently belittles Clov and orders him about as he bemoans his past; Clov resents Hamm but can’t bring himself to leave, as on some level both men need each other. Nagg and Nell provide some comic relief in their own interactions, while Nagg also becomes a foil for Hamm and his misery.
Stoodley says the idea of using puppets for Nagg and Nell was sparked in part by seeing the play “Imogen” some years back at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, in which a lifelike, 3-foot puppet was used to portray a child.
“I found it very, very moving,” she said.
With that in mind, Stoodley got together a couple of years ago with members of two other theater groups: Sandglass Theater of Putney, Vermont, which combines puppetry with live actors and music, and Pilgrim Theatre of Ashfield, a collaborative group that also has connections to the Boston Center for the Arts. The three groups experimented with using puppets in an extended workshop that focused on the first part of “Endgame” and decided the idea would work.
In describing these sessions, Eric Bass, co-founder of Sandglass Theater, wrote that given Nagg and Nell are supposed to be in garbage cans, he was dubious at first about the idea of using puppets for the characters: “They sounded like Mr. and Mrs. Oscar the Grouch.” But as the workshop on “Endgame” proceeded, he saw increasing possibilities if the puppets could be put in a different setting, which could allow new interpretations of the play.
“By casting these two characters as puppets, the question is opened up as to whether these parents are really in the room, or only in Hamm’s memory,” he notes.
The finished version of the play features a sort of amalgamation of a puppet booth and cupboard, with Nagg and Nell nestled in separate compartments. The puppets are designed, manipulated and voiced by David Regan, an associate member of Sandglass Theater, who recalls reading “Endgame” years ago and thinking it was dark, nihilistic and depressing.
“I remember thinking, ‘Who would want to see this or perform in it?’ ” he said.
But now he sees real humor in the play — Beckett was a big fan of Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello and other early slapstick movie comedians — and he also sees a new dynamic in the way Hamm, played by Rand Foerster, and Clov, played by Kermit Dunkelberg, interact with the puppets. “It definitely brings a different dimension” to the play, he said.
At a recent run-through of “Endgame” at Serious Play’s studio in the Eastworks building in Easthampton, Stoodley watched the action intently, taking notes and occasionally signaling to her husband, Robin Doty, who was standing nearby and handling a computer that produced ambient music and sound effects.
Foerster, as Hamm, sat in an upholstered chair mounted on a wheeled wooden platform, wearing a paisley bathrobe, small knit hat and dark glasses. Dunkelberg, who’s the co-founder of Pilgrim Theatre, shuffled across the stage in a kind of jerky motion, barely lifting his feet.
Beckett’s minimal stage directions for “Endgame” describe Clov as having a “stiff, staggering walk,” and Dunkelberg says he’s designed his movements with the idea that Clov is a bit puppet-like himself.
“The play reads pretty dark and depressing, but in performance, there’s definitely action and movement and some comedy,” he said. “There are also a lot of subtle variations in how the characters relate to each other.”
The dialogue has an off-the-wall quality, full of non sequiturs and elliptical loops. At one point, Hamm moans “Why don’t you kill me?” Clov’s response? “I don’t know the combination of the cupboard.”
One of the props is a stuffed, three-legged dog that Hamm tries to invest with real qualities.
“Is he gazing at me?” he asks Clov. “As if he were asking me to take him for a walk?”
Foerster, of Amherst, who’s directed and performed in plays with Northampton’s New Century Theatre, says he took on the role of Hamm because “it’s a major challenge to pull off.” Sitting in a chair for about 90 minutes, with just his voice and facial expressions available for emoting, is hard enough, he says, but there’s a bigger challenge for the whole production, given its tiny cast and minimalist structure: “The pressure’s on to make it entertaining.”
Indeed, “Endgame” might seem an odd play for Stoodley to take on, since a core part of Serious Play! productions is that movement and physicality — what the group calls “total physical expressiveness on stage” — is essential for good theater.
But Stoodley said after her group’s last major production, “Blind Dreamers,” an ensemble piece that fused dance with a somewhat improvised script — it was a tribute to German choreographer Pina Bausch — she wanted to do something different.
“I wanted to go with words. I wanted to go completely in the opposite direction.”
She says she read many scripts and eventually came to “Endgame,” a play she’d first read in college and hadn’t understood. But a fresh reading gave her new insights; she says it seemed more about what people do to get by, or simply to hang on, in life.
In fact, Stoodley said she, Dunkelberg and Foerster have all struggled in recent years with losing family members or tending them as they’ve fallen ill — Stoodley said she lost both her parents and an aunt and uncle she was close to — and so the play “really resonates with us in that way. In the end, I think it’s more about what we do, what we’re willing to do, to survive.”
Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazettenet.com.
“Endgame Project” will be performed March 17-19 at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy of Music in Northampton and March 31-April 2 at 7:30 p.m. at Gateway City Arts in Holyoke. Seating is limited.
Tickets for the Northampton shows are available at aomtheatre.com and 584-9032; for the Holyoke shows, contact brownpapertickets.com or call 800-838-3006.
There will be post-play “talkbacks” on March 17 at Convino, in the basement of Thornes Marketplace in Northampton, and on April 1 at Gateway City Arts.