Review: ENDGAME at Catastrophic Theatre

Something tells me Catastrophic Theatre has done ENDGAME before, and this is just them sharpening their blades on Beckett’s one-act tragi-comedy about a man who can not sit and one who can not stand in a room sometime after the apocalypse. Throw in some parents dying in trash cans, and it is just another day at the office for this company. Thirty years ago, in 1995, the show was staged with Greg Dean, Jim Parsons(before THE BIG BANG THEORY), and was directed by Jason Nodler. In the apocalyptic year of 2012, they decided to do it again, and Greg and Jason reclaimed their respective roles. And here we are once again at the edge of destruction in 2025, and it’s all just a little bit of history repeating. Before this world ends, you need to see Catastrophic’s staging of ENDGAME starring Greg Dean and directed by Jason Nodler. They never truly seem to be finished with this one, but you can’t honestly expect the world to be here for a revival in thirteen years.

ENDGAME was first produced in a French-language version presented in London’s Royal Court Theatre in April of 1957. The play is written by Irish author Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), who is most known for WAITING FOR GODOT, but ENDGAME is a piece he considered the apex of his artistic career. It certainly seems to encapsulate everything Beckett thought about humanity, and it’s a sleek and tight ninety-minute waltz with no need for intermission. It is informed by Beckett’s service in World War II for the French, combined with the stoicism around him in London. The setup is that in a drab, dingy room, a servant named Clov awakens his master, Hamm, by removing a bloody cloth from his face. Clov never sits, and Hamm is confined to his chair. Off to the left are two trash cans wherein Hamm’s parents, Nagg and Nell, are trapped because they have no legs. Most of the play consists of acrimonious dialogue being spouted by Hamm at the other characters. Yet there are some revelations to be found in the story he tells, and we begin to see the beginning or middle of this end. But will it ever truly come?

Greg Dean plays Hamm, and the actor is confined to a chair for the entirety, so he knows he must deliver all he wishes to convey with his face and occasionally some graceful fluid hand gestures. He pitches everything around royal decay, and we can feel how grandiose Hamm was before he started rotting away. Dean gives a definitive turn as Hamm, an actor primed over the years for a role he has been playing since (artistic) birth. Few can touch him. Luis Galindo plays the ever-in-motion Clov and does the opposite of his scene partner. Galindo leans into physical comedy through his gait, a surprise spin around, and a sense of clowning that is genius. Jeff Miller and Julia Oppenheim are even more confined than Dean, because they remain in metal dustbins the entire time. But the pair make the most of it with their hands, eyes, and voices to bring to life Nagg and Nell. This is a quartet that knows how to play these instruments like prodigies in this death march of an absurdist exercise. The cast is exquisite, and they know how to give the audience a definitive take on ENDGAME.

But of course, they all do this so sublimely, because they are guided by Mr. Jason Nodler, who has been proven a Beckett master time and again as a director. I would love to sit in a room with Nodler as he dreams up just how precise he is going to make this, and then shuffle the deck and beg for ordered chaos while screaming a four-letter expletive. If you are going to experience Beckett done right, the Catastrophic Theatre may well be your only option. This is what the company is rightfully known for and designed for. I doubt any other company in Houston… Texas… the country… maybe the world could give this as much justice as they do. I know currently Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are starring on Broadway in WAITING FOR GODOT, but that is simply stunt-casting, a sort of excellent absurdist adventure. But Catastrophic Theatre? These guys do Beckett for keeps. The technical aspects hold up just as well as the acting and direction. Set design is by Afsaneh Aayani, who gives us an inky dingy space to peer into. It is its own abyss. She captures the play in her work. Macy Lyne’s costumes are on point as well, classically tailored for the end of days, rich-looking rags in a state of decay. Hudson Davis’s lights add to the doom and gloom in a brilliant way. ENDGAME looks amazing, and the execution of a world in a rotted state is gorgeously realized in every direction.

This is Beckett done right, this is Beckett at his most beautiful and brutal. There truly is not much to complain about or criticize, because these are artists sitting comfortably in what they do best. You likely will never see a more completely realized ENDGAME than this one, and this is why the Catastrophic Theatre has endured so long. Because we need them to remind us of the absurd, the ominous, and the gothic with their sardonic humor. During these apocalyptic times, it is nice to know that Greg Deanand Jason Nodler have been preparing for the end for over three decades. Luis Galindo, Jeff Miller, and Julia Oppenheim quickly catch up. And Afsaneh Aayani, Macy Lyne, and Husdon Davis design the whimper and the big bang. Don’t miss this one, we’ll be living it all too soon. “Finished, it’s finished, nearly finished, it must be nearly finished.”