The End
11
Samuel Beckett Play
at the New Theatre
Dublin
by Shane Hennessy
T
he End is one of Samuel Beckett’s
curiously less celebrated pieces despite it’s
reputation as one of his most compelling.
It’s a one hour, one-man play chronicling the
destitution of a man from his expulsion from a
caring facility to laying down as his life reaches a
quiet conclusion.
Marcus Lamb (that’s Des O’ Malley from the
excellent Charlie episodic in case you were
wondering) delivers the only type of performance
that can do a Beckett undertaking any justice. The
compelling text demands a sure-hand to deliver it,
and Lamb demonstrates an effusive respect with
a stoic and unyielding delivery.
The production itself is a contradiction, the
verbosity of Beckett as we know him presented in
the guise of how he saw himself torn, ragged and
in terminal consideration of his own mortality.
Cursed by circumstance and left without hope,
he’s left with the less celebrated things in life to
amuse himself e.g. a finger up the arse. Only
Beckett can make such an act seem poetic, but it’s
up to the man on stage to get the reaction. The
more obvious comic relief often takes care of
itself, but Lamb adeptly delivers the tricky
subtleties of Becketts humour to audible titters a
noteworthy achievement.
There are also sudden oscillations between
vulnerability and rage with absolutely no warning
but it’s packed with resonance. Referring to kids
cycling by on their paper-round.. “Kids screaming
the names of the paper, headlines too…” sends
him into a fit of anger, so detached from reality
he’s no longer capable of accepting it.
He speaks about being unable to tell the
difference between a religious fanatic and an
escaped lunatic, an assertion that’s perhaps more
timely t