The Bit with the Stuffed Dog is REALLY Funny

Late in my career as a theatre scholar, after I had read Endgame about 30 times and discussed it endlessly in seminars, I saw an excellent production at Berkeley Repertory Theatre with my then-boyfriend Kevin, himself a playwright and performer. At the end, he turned to me and said, "You know? This just isn't a very good play."

While an excellent play like Waiting for Godot can survive even a weak production, it takes an excellent production to verify that a play is not very good. Berkeley Rep's production was excellent, and I had to admit, heretically, that Kevin was right. Endgame is a canonical work of the "theatre of the absurd", a must-read for theatre scholars, a foil to Godot that illuminates the latter in new ways, a landmark of world literature, etc. But it's not a very good play.

However, there is a hilarious bit with a stuffed dog.

But OK, a good review needs to talk about the plot, or at least the situation, which is what Beckett tends to offer us in place of plots. For the record, Endgame is about an old, blind man in a wheelchair, Hamm, tended by a servant, Clov. Hamm can never stand up. Clov can never sit down. Hamm's parents, Nagg and Nell, are also onstage. Both legless, they live in trashcans from which their pathetic heads occasionally emerge. Clov is responsible for changing their sawdust.

So Endgame is a counterpoint to Waiting for Godot. Godot takes place in the open country, Endgame in a confined room. Godot's heros are partners, Endgame's are a master and slave. And so on.

My review of Waiting for Godot stressed that the play has to be seen to really be appreciated. Endgame, alas, has to be read if you're going to experience it at all, because it's rarely produced and even the best productions make it seem, well, not very good. I'm convinced that this play found its way into the canon largely through the work of readers. To the extent that this play deserves to survive, it's not as a play. It's as a text for reading. And as such, it's probably worth reading only if you really want to know Beckett inside and out. Except ...

Except that buried in this work are some great little stories, narrated by Hamm or sometimes by Clov. Parables that stick in the mind like Zen koans ...

and except for the bit with the stuffed dog, which is REALLY, REALLY funny!