Endgame Act Without Words I

Endgame
Act Without Words I

WORKS BY SAMUEL BECKETT PUBLISHED BY GROVE PRESS

Collected Poems in English and French

The Collected Shorter Plays

(All That Fall, Act Without Words I, Act Without Words II, Krapp’s Last Tape, Rough for Theatre I, Rough for Theatre II, Embers, Rough for Radio I, Rough for Radio II, Words and Music, Cascando, Play, Film, The Old Tune, Come and Go, Eh Joe, Breath, Not I, That Time, Footfalls, Ghost Trio, . . . but the clouds . . ., A Piece of Monologue, Rockaby, Ohio Impromptu, Quad, Catastrophe, Nacht and Träume, What Where)

The Complete Short Prose: 1929–1989, edited by S. E. Gontarski

(Assumption, Sedendo et Quiescendo, Text, A Case in a Thousand, First Love, The Expelled, The Calmative, The End, Texts for Nothing 1–13, From an Abandoned Work, The Image, All Strange Away, Imagination Dead Imagine, Enough, Ping, Lessness, The Lost Ones, Fizzles 1–8, Heard in the Dark 1, Heard in the Dark 2, One Evening, As the story was told, The Cliff, neither, Stirrings Still, Variations on a “Still” Point,
Faux Départs,
The Capital of the Ruins)

Disjecta: Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragment

Endgame and Act Without Words

First Love and Other Shorts

Grove Centenary Editions

Volume I: Novels

(Murphy, Watt, Mercier and Camier)

Volume II: Novels

(Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, How It Is)

Volume III: Dramatic Works

Volume IV: Poems, Short Fiction, Criticism

Happy Days

Happy Days: Production Notebooks

How It Is

I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On:

A Samuel Beckett Reader

Krapp’s Last Tape

(All That Fall, Embers, Act Without Words I, Act Without Words II)

Mercier and Camier

Molloy

More Pricks Than Kicks

(Dante and the Lobster, Fingal, Ding-Dong, A Wet Night, Love and Lethe, Walking Out, What a Misfortune, The Smeraldina’s Billet Doux, Yellow, Draff)

Murphy

Nohow On

(Company, Ill Seen Ill Said, Worstward Ho)

Proust

The Shorter Plays: Theatrical Notebooks, edited by S. E. Gontarski

(Play, Come and Go, Eh Joe, Footfalls, That Time, What Where, Not I)

Stories and Texts for Nothing

(The Expelled, The Calmative, The End, Texts for Nothing 1–13)

Three Novels

(Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable)

Waiting for Godot

Waiting for Godot: A Bilingual Edition

Waiting for Godot: Theatrical Notebooks

Watt

Samuel Beckett

Endgame
, originally published under the title
Fin de partie
, copyright © 1957 by Les Editions de Minuit. Translation copyright © 1957 by The Estate of Samuel Beckett

Act Without Words I
, originally published under the title
Acte sans paroles I
, copyright © 1956 by Les Editions de Minuit. Translation copyright © 1957 by The Estate of Samuel Beckett

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Design and textual supervision by Laura Lindgren

eBook ISBN: 978-0-8021-9881-5

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 58-5332

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Endgame

Act Without Words I

Endgame 1

Act Without Words I 95

For Roger Blin

Fin de partie
was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London on April 3, 1957. It was directed by Roger Blin, and the décor was designed by Jacques Noel. Hamm was played by Roger Blin, Clov by Jean Martin, Nagg by Georges Adet, and Nell by Christine Tsingos. Beckett translated the text into English in 1957, and the first English-language performance of
Endgame
took place at the Cherry Lane Theater, New York, on January 28, 1958. It was directed by Alan Schneider. Hamm was played by Lester Rawlins, Clov by Alvin Epstein, Nagg by P. J. Kelly, and Nell by Nydia Westman.

Acte sans paroles I
was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London on April 3, 1957. It was directed and performed by Deryk Mendel, the décor was designed by Jacques Noel, and the music composed by John Beckett.
Act Without Words I
was performed in 1972 at The Forum Theatre, Lincoln Center, in New York. It was directed by Alan Schneider and performed by Hume Cronyn.

Nagg
Nell
Hamm
Clov

Bare interior.

Grey light.

Left and right back, high up, two small windows, curtains drawn.
Front right, a door. Hanging near door, its face to wall, a picture.
Front left, touching each other, covered with an old sheet, two ashbins.
Center, in an armchair on castors, covered with an old sheet, Hamm.
Motionless by the door, his eyes fixed on Hamm, Clov. Very red face.
Brief tableau.

Clov goes and stands under window left. Stiff, staggering walk. He looks up at window left. He turns and looks at window right. He goes and stands under window right. He looks up at window right. He turns and looks at window left. He goes out, comes back immediately with a small step-ladder, carries it over and sets it down under window left, gets up on it, draws back curtain. He gets down, takes six steps (for example) towards window right, goes back for ladder, carries it over and sets it down under window right, gets up on it, draws back curtain. He gets down, takes three steps towards window left, goes back for ladder, carries it over and sets it down under window left, gets up on it, looks out of window. Brief laugh. He gets down, takes one step towards window right, goes back for ladder, carries it over and sets it down under window right, gets up on it, looks out of window. Brief laugh. He gets down, goes with ladder towards ashbins, halts, turns, carries back ladder and sets it down under window right, goes to ashbins, removes sheet covering them, folds it over his arm. He raises one
lid, stoops and looks into bin. Brief laugh. He closes lid. Same with other bin. He goes to Hamm, removes sheet covering him, folds it over his arm. In a dressing-gown, a stiff toque on his head, a large blood-stained handkerchief over his face, a whistle hanging from his neck, a rug over his knees, thick socks on his feet, Hamm seems to be asleep. Clov looks him over. Brief laugh. He goes to door, halts, turns towards auditorium.

CLOV
[
fixed gaze, tonelessly
] Finished, it’s finished, nearly finished, it must be nearly finished.

[
Pause.
]

Grain upon grain, one by one, and one day, suddenly, there’s a heap, a little heap, the impossible heap.

[
Pause.
]

I can’t be punished any more.

[
Pause.
]

I’ll go now to my kitchen, ten feet by ten feet by ten feet, and wait for him to whistle me.

[
Pause.
]

Nice dimensions, nice proportions, I’ll lean on the table, and look at the wall, and wait for him to whistle me.

[
He remains a moment motionless, then goes out. He comes back immediately, goes to window right, takes up the ladder and carries it out. Pause. Hamm stirs. He yawns under the handkerchief. He removes the handkerchief from his face. Very red face. Black glasses.
]

HAMM
Me—

[
he yawns
]

—to play.

[
He holds the handkerchief spread out before him.
]

Old stancher!

[
He takes off his glasses, wipes his eyes, his face, the glasses, puts them on again, folds the handkerchief and puts it back neatly in the breast-pocket of his dressing-gown. He clears his throat, joins the tips of his fingers.
]

Can there be misery—

[
he yawns
]

—loftier than mine? No doubt. Formerly. But now?

[
Pause.
]

My father?

[
Pause.
]

My mother?

[
Pause.
]

My . . . dog?

[
Pause.
]

Oh I am willing to believe they suffer as much as such creatures can suffer. But does that mean their sufferings equal mine? No doubt.

[
Pause.
]

No, all is a—

[
he yawns
]

—bsolute,

[
proudly
]

the bigger a man is the fuller he is.

[
Pause. Gloomily.
]

And the emptier.

[
He sniffs.
]

Clov!

[
Pause.
]

No, alone.

[
Pause.
]

What dreams! Those forests!

[
Pause.
]

Enough, it’s time it ended, in the shelter too.

[
Pause.
]

And yet I hesitate, I hesitate to . . . to end. Yes, there it is, it’s time it ended and yet I hesitate to—

[
he yawns
]

—to end.

[
Yawns.
]

God, I’m tired, I’d be better off in bed.

[
He whistles. Enter Clov immediately. He halts beside the chair.
]

You pollute the air!

[
Pause.
]

Get me ready, I’m going to bed.

CLOV
I’ve just got you up.

HAMM
And what of it?

CLOV
I can’t be getting you up and putting you to bed every five minutes, I have things to do.

[
Pause.
]

HAMM
Did you ever see my eyes?

CLOV
No.

HAMM
Did you never have the curiosity, while I was sleeping, to take off my glasses and look at my eyes?

CLOV
Pulling back the lids?

[
Pause.
]

No.

HAMM
One of these days I’ll show them to you.

[
Pause.
]

It seems they’ve gone all white.