Endgame and Act Without Words (Paperback)

by Samuel Beckett (Author) "Left and right back, high up, two small windows, curtains drawn..." (more)
Key Phrases: place beside the chair, pushes chair, window right, Enter Clov, Exit Clov, Mother Pegg (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Originally written in French and translated into English by Beckett, "Endgame" was given its first London performance at the Royal Court Theatre in 1957. HAMM - Clov! CLOV - Yes. HAMM - Nature has forgotten us. CLOV - There's no more nature. HAMM - No more nature! You exaggerate. CLOV In the vicinity. HAMM - But we breathe, we change! We lose our hair our teeth! Our bloom! Our ideals! CLOV - Then she hasn't forgotten us. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (January 12, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802150241
• ISBN-13: 978-0802150240
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 4.7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #132,071 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Epitomy of the Theatre of the Absurd.......to the extreme., May 2, 1997

By A Customer

What the audience is met with is full-blown confusion. Thefirst scene opens with a brief tableau, a frozen frame depicting thetwo main character Clov and Hamm, the latter confined to a chair and the other dressed in shabby clothes, face expressionless, standing and looking into the audience. Beckett intends for the audience to be shocked and to be left unrestful. Beckett wrote Endgame to illustrate human suffering and the meaninglessness of routine. People who are not courageous enough to experience anything other than the monotony of life, people who lack any imagination and creativity. It is the extent of unfeelingness and total oblivion of emotions that detaches the characters in the play from what we may perceive as "realistic". On the first reading, one may be put off entirely by the repetitive questions and actions but with a closer second reading, the quality of Beckett's dramatic technique becomes palpable. Beckett's ingenuity of writing a play devoid of a plot shows that a dramamtist is not always bound to plot as most people assume. Anyway, here is a quote from the play to consider: "All life long the same questions, the same answers..........have you not have enough of this..this...this thing?"

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beckett at his maddening best, September 4, 1999

By A Customer

I am no literary critic, but after reading Waiting for Godot, I sought more of his works. Beckett smashes everyday reality with a sledgehammer, wrecking the fantasy of social reality as we know it. The pointless circular conversations between Hamm and Clov are pathetic, useless, and point to the madness we engage in everyday, living in our own self created fantasies. We try to communicate with others , but in a sense we are only inflicting our own psychosis on each other, selfishly engaging in social ritual for some kind of perverse gratification. Of course this is only one take on life, only one way of viewing it. And like Elutheria and Godot, it is a dark vision. But to confront the deepest anxiety and emptiness within, a dark path is the only road to follow. Act Without Words is the first mime I have ever read. Seemingly simple, it also attempts to paint a picture of the futility and hoplessness of life, everything the mime reaches for he can never get, always tantilizingly out of reach. So with satisfaction and everything else in life it is always just over the horizon. Although others have interpreted this sense of need in other ways, sometimes more positively, Beckett shows it in an aweful light, leaving the reader with an empty yearning for something that can never be satisfied.

18 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful writing on several different perspectives, September 7, 2000

By	Jacob Baruch Krell (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews

Endgame is a beautiful example of why Samuel Beckett is hailed as one of the greatest playwrites of the 20th century. Beckett, one of the most profound exestentialists of all time is famous for not only his brilliant dialouge (so real and beautiful) but also for his amazing characters. Endgame is a perfect example of this.

If you are considering reading this play, or any other by Beckett, I suggest you prepare yourself. Do not expect Death of a Salesman here, because you are going to get the exact opposite. Without proper analyzation, Endgame appears to have no real meaning or plot so to speak. Baisically, it is about two men struggling to get along with each other, one whom had raised the other since birth. The entire one act play is based on their rising conflict with each other, and on the developement of both the major characters, Clov and Hamm. Although this may seem to you as not much to base a play on, the art of exestencialism is based on human emotion and existence. Therefore, it is the perfect place to describe a character in depth. If you are still having difficulty understanding the meaning of Endgame, analyze it as a feud between an aging father and a teenage son. The aging father yells and is tired of the teen, but still wants to hold him. The teen is tired of the father, but still listens to him until a certain line is crossed. That line will become clearer in Endgame by Samuell Beckett, a true masterpiece, which I highly recommend.