‘Endgame’

Abstract

The première production of Endgame, in its original French version as Fin de partie, took place in London at the Royal Court Theatre in April 1957 with Roger Blin and Jean Martin, Godot’s Pozzo and Lucky, playing Hamm and Clov. Despite the success of Godot, Blin had been unable to locate a theatre in Paris willing to risk a production of Beckett’s new play.¹ That local inhospitality explains the peculiar event of a play in French being given its initial production in an English-speaking theatre in London. At the end of the month, however, the production moved into the small Studio des Champs Élysées. Les Editions de Minuit published the text shortly before its first production, as they did with Godot.² Beckett’s translation, Endgame, was published in 1958, and the first production of the English text took place under Alan Schneider’s direction at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York on 28 January 1958.³ In October the play returned to the Royal Court in its English translation, this time directed by George Devine who, like Blin, also played Hamm.