Index of University Press Releases

Dec. 2, 2008

DWU Theatre produces “Endgame”

MITCHELL – The DWU Theatre is hosting a production of “Endgame,” by Samuel Beckett this weekend at the Patten-Wing Theatre in Hughes Science Hall.

Productions are at 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 4-6, and at 2 p.m. on Dec. 7. “Endgame” is an Alpha Psi Omega production and is a participating production with the American College Theatre Festival.

“We are also staging this production in a very odd way in the Patten-Wing Theatre,” said Daniel Miller, assistant professor of theatre at DWU. “A way that has never been done at DWU before … ever.”

“Endgame” is directed by sophomore Ben Floyd, Sioux Falls.

Black humor pervades an Absurdist take on the subject of despair and the will to survive in an uncomprehending and incomprehensible world.

Two men, master and servant, exist in a post apocalyptic shelter, with an aged couple inhabiting two dustbins nearby. The two protagonists are mutually dependent, with Hamm, played by Joe Schoenfelder ’08, Ethan, the tyrannical older man, blind and crippled, bullying his younger servant, Clov, played by Danny Richardson, Wichita, Kans., who suffers disabilities of his own.

Hamm and Clov form a challenging and at times, farcical, double act, with Nagg, played by Nicole Anderson, Watertown, and Nell, played by Chris Ferera, Riverside, Calif., interjecting sharp and poignant reminiscences of their own. “Nothing is funnier than unhappiness” opines Nell tellingly.

The perfect example of an absurdist play, “Endgame” is guaranteed to linger in the audience’s memory long after the curtain has fallen.