In Endgame, life is more than a “tale told by an idiot . . . signifying nothing,” as Macbeth puts it when he’s feeling blue. It’s also a tale told to idiots—and no one is listening.
I couldn’t tell you what Kays hoped to accomplish by having Beckett’s existential clowns perform at a birthday party, unless it’s meant to be a kind of memento mori—the fly on the cake reminding us that all fun and games come to the same end. Or maybe we’re just supposed to appreciate the comic collision of the author’s dark philosophy and the wholesome entertainments of childhood. Sort of like what you’d get if you took the Addams Family to Chuck E. Cheese’s.
The strategy of playing the script strictly for laughs is preferable to the leaden solemnity Beckett sometimes inspires. Ehrmann and Shaw have the snappy comic timing to carry it off for long stretches of the play, particularly during Hamm and Clov’s mordant exchanges (“Do you believe in the life to come?” “Mine was always that”).
Through 4/5: Fri-Sat and Mon 8 PM, Sun 3 PM Den Theatre 1329-1333 N. Milwaukee 773-609-2336the-hypocrites.com $28
