Nov 14, 2009

Endgame | Endgame: The Playwright Completes Himself

In the following essay excerpt, Homan examines Hamm’s ‘‘creation.’’

A common practice in the theater is to cover the set once the play is over so that it will be the same set, ‘‘virginal’’ if you will, at the next performance, not changed by the dust and dirt that make their way into the playhouse. Endgame opens with the figurative ‘‘birth’’ of its playwright as the servant Clov ‘‘goes to Hamm, removes sheet covering him, folds it over his arms.’’ To use the technical term from the Elizabethan stage, Hamm is ‘‘discovered,’’ though for a time he is stationary while Clov holds the stage.

Some critics...