Endgame - Kalamunda Dramatic Society (9 March 2025)

Life can be absurd. Chaotic. Meaningless. Repetitive. Fraught with setbacks and obstacles. This may sound bleak. But that doesn't mean it isn't honest. Or filled with dark humour and small moments of triumph. 

Most stories lean towards the light. Towards narrative structures and arcs that are familiar and comforting. Storytelling that is ingrained on the human psyche. Aristotle's Poetics. The Hero's Journey. Save the Cat! I'm from that school of writers. Well, maybe not the last one. 

Samuel Beckett is decidedly not. His work stubbornly refuses to conform to those traditional norms. It is absurd, chaotic, and repetitive. It's also often repetitive and bleak. And absurd. Oftentimes chaotic. 

It's a style that can be alienating and confronting. There aren't the normal storytelling rhythms you expect - not in narrative structure, not in the flow and cadence of dialogue. Nor in tidy resolutions or convenient character arcs.

What there is though is adherence to theme. A sort of existential dread as we battle those darker forces in everyday life; from the absurd to the meaningless. The audience grapples for meaning mirroring the characters' own struggle. 

In an intimate theatre such as KADS there's an unspoken compact in a play like Endgame. We are trapped with the characters. We may suffer. We may get frustrated or confused. We laugh at the absurdity and the bleak humour. We might empathise with the plight of these characters. If we pay attention we could actually discern the thread of a more conventional story that is being told; hidden in fragments and ellipses, and the whims of what is possibly an unreliable narrator. At the very least one that delights in bombast. It's a fascinating concoction that challenges an audience and forces us to think. 

It strikes me as a play that demands great patience from its director and cast. Stage directions are performed at an almost metronomic pace which requires an impressive level of discipline. The same with the delivery of dialogue. The pause is the master of all here. In the space between lines. In the stillness between movement. 

The story is set in a place that feels timeless; where the world as we know it has ended for reasons we will never glean. A blind, infirmed man with a cruel intellect - Hamm (Neale Paterson) - who is confined to an armchair set on casters, is engaged in a battle of wills with his servile companion who tends to him and cannot sit - Clov (Zane Alexander). All the while, Hamm's elderly and legless parents - Nagg (Malcolm Douglas) and Nell (Amanda Watson) - who are stuffed in large dustbins watch on helplessly. All of them face an inevitable end the same as the chess pieces and board that adorn the set. 

The metaphor is clear - the chessboard is a finite space and the pieces within it can only move in certain predetermined ways until the game finally comes to a conclusion. Hamm is the King who is to be attended to at all times and whose movement is minimal. Clov, I suspect, is perhaps best suited as a Bishop who can only move awkwardly, legs splayed apart, all diagonal. Nagg and Nell feel like hapless pawns though the dustbins are reminiscent of castles.

It's a handsome and striking set credited to Kresna, Melisa Musulin, Leigh Siragusa, Peter Bloor, Peter Neaves and Virigina Moore Price who also directs here alongside Rosalind Moore. It features two portholes set high on either side of the stage walls - lit to represent the dark/ocean; the other the earth/light. Again, the symmetry with the chessboard is clear. Also two large dustbins that sit atop a table, and Hamm's armchair. 

Makeup and costuming is exaggerated for effect - Nagg and Nell especially looking grotesquely decrepit. There is a sense of decay as the end approaches. The lighting design is very atmospheric as it conceals almost as much as it reveals at times. The porthole lighting is beautifully symbolic.

The acting is excellent. Neale Paterson holds our attention as Hamm even though the character is largely unable to move and his eyes are shielded by sunglasses. It's his voice that commands attention here as Hamm cajoles and belittles Clov whilst pleading for his painkillers and occasionally undercutting theatrical virtuosity with the underplayed aside. Again, the pause is used to great effect.

Zane Alexander is at the top of his game with a wonderfully judged physical performance that is exacting in its repetition and pace. We feel Clov's dilemma - he desperately wants to leave... but where would he go? There is a delicate balance of reproachment, reluctant compliance, and utter exasperation which Alexander cycles through with great skill.

Malcolm Douglas and Amanda Watson are the offbeat comic foil with tragic overtones. Douglas delivers a cutting tale about a man and a tailor with a gloriously dark punchline. Watson tugs briefly at our heartstrings in a wistful manner that belies the darkness. 

Director Virginia Moore Price, who also did the lighting design and was sound and lighting operator for Sunday's matinee, and her co-director Rosalind Moore, stick to their guns in terms of pacing and embracing the inherent absurdism of the piece. Nothing is rushed. There are no apologies here for a style that some audience members may blanch at. 

I confess, it took me an entire day pondering what I had seen to slowly grasp the meaning of the play, as incomplete as that may be. In this way it's like that other lauded play that confounded me last year until it all made sense in the Moore directed Top Girls. It took me a little longer this time! 

Endgame is on at KADS in Kalamunda until 22 March 2025. Be patient with it. Chew over it. Come to your own conclusions and epiphanies. It's part of an encouraging trend in community theatre - putting on complex and challenging works that are a little outside the norm. I love the confidence that signals. 

The Deep Blue Sea - Melville Theatre Company (19 July 2024)

Financial security and status versus impulsiveness and passion. One a secret, both seductive in their own ways. The rock and the deep blue sea Hester Collyer (Anna Head) finds herself caught between in Terence Rattigan's play set in post World War Two Britain. It's all too much for such a sensory woman as Hester who attempts a desperate solution to end her woes. 

It's an arresting opening to a complex and nuanced character study. Hester's tragic plan is only a shilling's worth away from succeeding. She is found unconscious in her flat by the landlady and neighbours who enlist the service of an alleged doctor and call Hester's estranged husband, Sir William Collyer (Neale Paterson) who is an eminent judge. Over the course of that day we meet Hester's lover, Freddie Page (Steven Hounsome), a former RAF pilot who struggles with his own demons by way of the bottle. We begin to understand the nature of Hester's trauma in her interactions with Freddie, Sir William, and various other characters who periodically check in on her, rightfully concerned. 

As an audience we watch in growing fascination and anxiety about where this may all end. Our deepest fears seem justified in one chilling sequence before salvation arrives from the most unlikeliest of sources. We collectively breathe a sigh of relief. It is a rollercoaster of emotions for both the characters and the viewer.

It is a handsomely staged production. Director Barry Park has wisely moved the raked seating closer to the stage which puts us right in the swirl of this most intimate of dramas. The set is beautifully lit and appointed; the costuming is excellent in representing the status and emotional hue of each character; and the original music and sound design adds tension in moments of unease. The repeated use of the song I Only Have Eyes For You takes on subtly different meanings as the story unfolds.   

All this is in service to the performances which are excellent across the board. What struck me most though was the range of those performances. The neighbours, Ann and Phillip Welch, are earnestly portrayed by Sacha Emeljanow and Rhys Lander. They seem genuine in their concern for Hester and the ramifications if the police were to be involved. Lander has a lovely sequence in the second half where that earnestness works against his character truly empathising with Hester. Head delivers Hester's barely contained sarcasm in response in withering fashion. Indeed, there are many great putdowns throughout the script. But, crucially, they are uttered casually without adding unnecessary and showy spice.

Rose McKenna and Zane Alexander add sly humour to their characters, the landlady Mrs Elton and the somewhat mysterious Mr Miller. The comic touches are a nice counterpoint and occasional respite to the drama. In McKenna's case it also disguises, or at least makes entertaining, the imparting of critical tidbits that help move the plot along. It's an amusing portrayal of a woman who can't help but reveal the sort of secrets a landlady would accrue over a lifetime of dealing with all kinds of tenants. 

Alexander crafts a most interesting arc for the enigmatic Mr Miller who is almost a bit player to begin with but blossoms into something far more compelling as his background is slowly revealed. With a clipped German accent and curt speaking style, Alexander mines a lovely seam of incidental humour before becoming a true voice of empathy in a beautifully staged sequence. It's my favourite recent performance of his. 

Alex Comstock as Jackie Jackson felt a little young for Freddie's knockabout, former RAF buddy but acquits himself well. Hounsome, as Freddie though, gives another layered performance that was a little trickier to pin down. Freddie could be construed as a cad - and there's no doubt Hounsome gives the former pilot a theatrical bent verging on narcissism at times - but there's far more at work here. His hinted at alcoholism hides fears that he is past it - as a test pilot and maybe as someone who can continue satisfying Hester's yearnings and needs. It's a nicely judged performance.

In contrast, Neale Paterson's Sir William Collyer is a representation of reason versus Freddie's theatrics and Hester's emotional tumult. Superbly attired as befitting a man of Collyer's status, Paterson is all stillness and formality. You sense that Sir William does indeed love his wife and wants her back but has no way of understanding or connecting to her emotional and physical needs. Paterson gives the judge a slightly exasperated air of someone who can't understand why money, status, and the platitudes of love aren't enough.

Then there's Anna Head as Hester. What a character. What a performance. Full of layers, complexity, and contradictions. Head plays her at times as bursting with emotion verging on the melodramatic and, at others, as repressing her true feelings whilst putting on a brace face. She can be restless onstage, prowling around or fussing about with folding clothes or polishing shoes; or still and measured when considering her next steps, some of them awful. A vast range of emotions flicker across her face as Head lets us into Hester's inner turmoil. Park knows the calibre of performer he has as his lead and lets dramatic beats linger, fully trusting Head such as in the closing moments. We sit with Hester and watch, rapt, as the play masterfully concludes. 

Barry Park continues to tackle complex plays such as The Deep Blue Sea with great precision and empathy. Several of the coterie of actors he regularly works with feature here - Head, Hounsome, Alexander & Comstock. He also enlists the services of top notch designers and crew such as Costumier Merri Ford, Lighting and Set Designer Mark Nicholson, Music Composer Myles Wright, and Sound Operator Charlie Montgomery. This is a well performed, nuanced character study that is handsomely presented and beautifully executed. Well worth a look.

The Deep Blue Sea is on at The Main Hall of the Melville Civic Centre until 3 August.  

Photos by Grant Malcolm.