Half-way through the run of this fine Blue Raincoat production of Endgame, it was announced that this year’s Edinburgh International Festival would celebrate the works of Samuel Beckett – and that it would do so by including several productions by Dublin’s Gate Theatre, among others.

That announcement was a reminder of the extent to which the Gate has, during the last twenty-two years, produced what many regard as definitive versions of Beckett, particularly his most accessible plays: Waiting for Godot, Endgame, and Krapp's Last Tape. All three productions have been recast by the theatre through many revivals, but almost every version emphasises something that was not widely acknowledged before 1991: the centrality of an Irish perspective to those works, not just thematically but also in terms of the rhythms and cadences of the language. As a result, many recent productions of Beckett in Ireland and Britain have had to measure themselves not just against the reputation of Beckett himself, but also against an apparent belief that the Gate’s approach is the ‘right’ way to present his best known plays.

One of the most immediately interesting features of this Blue Raincoat Endgame is that it shakes off the Gate’s legacies, finding a way of seeing the play that is at once universal and distinctively Irish.
In the Gate’s productions of both Godot and Endgame, the presentation of power was communicated primarily through accent. In his performances as Pozzo and Hamm at the Gate, Alan Stanford delivered lines in an accent that was usually received as English, or, perhaps, as Anglo-Irish; that accent contrasted directly with the lines delivered by Barry McGovern and others, who had a more down-to-earth ‘Irish’ quality. As a result, audiences immediately understood how power functioned: they might not have seen those productions as explicit metaphors for Anglo-Irish relations, but their reception of the plays was certainly influenced by an awareness of the relationships between accent, class and power in these islands. And because the power relations in those productions were established so easily, the actors were then free to provide a more nuanced exploration of other aspects of their characters.

In contrast, under Niall Henry’s direction, the actors here flatten out their accents: they all appear to come from the same part of Ireland, and occupy broadly the same social stratum. This means that we must seek new explanations for why Hamm so terrorises Clov and his parents: it’s not a result of social class, privilege, or any other obvious marker of power. We quickly realize that Ciaran McCauley’s Hamm dominates all around him simply because he is a bully. But his abuse of others is directly related to his physical pain: because he’s in a state of perpetual anguish, his self-absorption becomes much easier to understand, and perhaps even to justify. Far from reducing his power, Hamm’s physical infirmity is the cause of his cruelty to the other characters, and hence of his dominance over them. Perhaps influenced by memories of Alan Stanford’s performances in this role, I did expect Hamm to be a bit… well, hammier – but McCauley’s reading of the character is fully justified by the script. It has an unrelenting intensity that evokes comparisons with aspects of Owen Roe’s performance as Lear at the Abbey.

McCauley’s characterisation in turn results in a similarly harsh performance from John Carty as Clov. Unlike Barry McGovern, who gave Clov a quirky, befuddled charisma, Carty plays Clov with a rat-like shuffling opportunism that makes him appear only slightly less nasty than Hamm. I found McGovern’s performances at the Gate easier to warm to, but again Carty’s reading is entirely supported by the script – and perhaps is even more in keeping with it.

Indeed, what is striking throughout the performance is the originality of the reading of the play, not just in terms of delivery of lines but also in design. The script tells us that Hamm’s handkerchief is bloodstained, for instance – and here we know why: McCauley’s face and hands are shown to be bloodied and burned, as if Hamm has been left out in the sun for too long. In contrast, the skin of Clov is blue and grey: like the landscape outside the room, Carty looks ‘corpsed’.

Other features of Barry McKinney’s design reinforce the mood of environmental catastrophe and bodily degeneration: the walls are covered in a peeling bloodied cream that looks like the colour of a used bandage, and instead of garbage bins, Nag and Nell are lodged in chemical vats. Many productions of Beckett feel the need to underline contemporary allusions – to global warming, nuclear war, and so on. All of those resonances are present here, but subtly so. This creates a mood of creeping doom that lingers long after the play finishes.

What we have, then, is an unrelentingly bleak production of Endgame – unrelenting to such an extent that McCauley can at times seem to be bullying the audience as much as Clov. The only moments of pathos and relief come from Nag and Nell (played by Peter Davey and Sandra O'Malley respectively). Both are made up to appear cadaverous and dehumanised, but there’s a tiny spark of affectionate humour still present in Davey’s eyes – making this one of the most poignant characterisations of the duo that I’ve seen.

The overall impact is to present a version of Endgame very different from any I’ve seen before, in the Gate or elsewhere. As ever, it is a relief to know that Blue Raincoat are around to give us new perspectives on Irish theatre – to challenge us to rethink what we know, not just about Beckett, but also about ourselves.

Patrick Lonergan teaches Drama at NUI Galway. His most recent book is The Theatre and Films of Martin McDonagh, which is published by Methuen Drama.