* Conclusion

I feel that the choice of ENDGAME for my thesis was a good decision for a

number of reasons. First, the scale of the technical production was such that I was

able to remain concentrated on the problems of the play that were closest to my

heart. I felt little distinction between working on the production and living my life.

At no time did I feel that I was doing a grad school project. I was using everything I

had at my disposal to stage an extremely challenging play.

Secondly, I feel that as the culmination of my time at Columbia, the

production had more to do with where I want to go as an artist than where I have

been. It was not so much the end of something as the beginning. I was not as

conscious of applying what I had learned as I was of learning something new. This

was somehow fitting.

I do not feel at all that we "cracked" ENDGAME. The play remains as elusive

to me as ever. There are two particular aspects of the play that I feel most strongly

about needing to reexamine:

1. The pauses are still a problem. Although we made significant progress

towards many of them, I felt that we still missed the mark on the majority. Perhaps

in trying to find a key that would unlock all of them we didn't spend enough

attention trying to find the essence and nature of each one individually.

2. A weak point that began to glare late in the process was Hamm's

monologue before his final soliloquy.³⁵

Particularly in performance, Jay and I

discovered that we were not happy with it. I felt that this section was the weakest

part of the production. We spent a lot of time working it but never found a

satisfactory direction. Hesitant as I am to saythis, it could be that the weakness was