great works ii – 2850 jta 12:25-2:05: love letters from the world

Rebecca:

We chose to do the scene 25 minutes into the play. Watching this scene, in specific, the acting of the actor who played Clov, really helped me conceptualize the character of Clov. In the story, I felt that Clov was in some way subservient to Hamm, but not in a very submissive way. It was apparent that he was stuck there, and serving Hamm, but I thought that he would have a more confident and strong nature. In the play, Clov appears as a very low esteem and submissive personality, never standing straight, and with scared facial expressions. Every time that Hamm tells Clov to stop, or “Wait,” or move to another place, Clov gets a panicked anxious facial expression, which was not clearly portrayed in the play. Even when Hamm asks Clov to “finish him,” I imagined Clov answering in a more powerful way, but even then, he answers in a scare tone and expression.

Songyun:

Hamm asks Clov to move him around on his chair and, as he can not see for himself, to hug the walls. Hamm directs Clov to return him back to his spot in the exact center. From the movie we can see Hamm is the protagonist of the play, though his unlikeable demeanor at times makes him the antagonist to his servant Clov. And Clov is the other protagonist of the play, the servant to Hamm despite his own infirmity. The movie is more actively than text. Hamm controls everyone in the play while having absolutely no control over himself or his environment. But from the text, we can feel more details expression from characters. Hamm’s great fear is that existence is cyclical. He wants to be left alone, but clings to Clov and does anything he can to pull him back into the room. He believes that nature is changing, though all evidence indicates that it has”zero” change.

Michelle:

One can describe The Endgame as a different and ‘weird’ play. The scenery of the play is really dark, dull, and plain. The costume of the characters contribute to the scenery of the play because it adds on to how ‘dull’ the play is meant to be. In this scene in the story, it doesn’t really describe how the characters are dressed, facial expressions, or make up looks that help the reader understand the appearance of Clov and Hamm. As for the movie, the costume designs definitely allow the reader to understand and feel how and why they are dressed and look the way they are. Hamm is wearing a thick coat in a dark brown blue-ish color with a grey blanket over his legs. He is also wearing a dark brown hat, with small, black tinted glasses. His hair is long, grey and all messed up. Clov is dressed in a navy blue cardigan with a light blue shirt under and black pants. Both Clov and Hamm’s clothing look dull and worn out which allows the reader to understand the kind of feeling Beckett wanted the express which in my opinion, with the costume design and the scenario he chose, I get a depressing and anxious feeling.