The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Dennehy’s Matterhorn
Beckett’s ‘Endgame’ running at Long Wharf Theatre through Feb. 5
Brian Dennehy does not mince words. He peppers his speech with salty idioms, granted, but his disposition toward the subject at hand — playing Hamm in Samuel Beckett’s “Endgame” at Long Wharf Theatre — is unequivocally transparent.
“This is one of the greatest plays ever written,” said Dennehy before rehearsal a few days before Christmas. “Whether or not we get any extra-base hits out of it remains to be seen.
“We have one of the greatest pieces of raw material ever to work with, that’s ever been written,” said Dennehy, referring to his castmates Reg E. Cathey (Clov), Joe Grifasi (Nagg) and Lynn Cohen (Nell) as well as director Gordon Edelstein, set designer Eugene Lee, costume designer Kaye Voyce and lighting designer Jennifer Tipton.
“It’s a powerful, hugely important play,” he said. “I mean, I’ve done a lot of great plays, and this is by far the deepest, most philosophical and intellectual, I guess, to use a word that’s dangerous in the sense that an audience flees from intellectual content.”
“Endgame,” running at Long Wharf’s Stage II through Feb. 5, is Dennehy’s second Beckett at Long Wharf, having starred in “Krapps Last Tape” just over five years ago. If anyone left during the performance, theatergoers were too focused on the Connecticutbased actor to notice.
“The last thing I want to do is talk people out of coming to the play,” he said. “This is theater at its best and most serious because of the writing.
“Beautiful writing,” he added. “Irish writing; Protestant Irish writing.”
This last is a strong kindred link with Dennehy, the grandson of Irish immigrants who settled in Bridgeport.
“My father was a newspaperman,” said Dennehy. “He worked for The Associated Press for years. I know that one of his earlier jobs was at the Bridgeport paper. He also worked at the Danbury paper.
“He was the single child of a real Irish Catholic family,” he said. “My grandfather shoveled coal for 50 years for Jenkins Valve in Bridgeport. He lived up near Beardsley Park. He kept chickens and goats and was a general pain in the ass to his neighbors. But he didn’t give a damn. It was the first piece of property he ever owned — big, tough guy. I mean, he shoveled coal for 50 years and smoked Lucky Strikes, which killed him shortly after he retired.
“But my father was raised in that anti-intellectual environment,” Dennehy said. “He studied for the priesthood because that’s how he could get his education without disturbing his very religious parents. He was so smart that they sent him to the University of Butane in Belgium, where he studied for three or four years. Then, at the ultimate moment when he was supposed to take his vows, he
FROM PAGE 1 said, ‘You know, I don’t think I really have a vocation here.’ What he got was a great classical education.
“He was a bit of a hustler, my old man,” Dennehy said. “Anyway, he came back and worked for newspapers for all of his life. And I don’t have to tell you what they pay — what they paid in those days was worse. But he did what he wanted to do and I have tremendous admiration for him.
“My old man was quite an extraordinary guy,” said Dennehy, who added that his father “discovered” heralded journalist Peter Arnett during the Vietnam War. “In any business that, as you well know, does not appreciate or compensate people like him, it needed people like him.
“Well, I have done the same thing in this business that’s notoriously rough on people,” he said. “But I’ve had a lot of luck, and success, I guess.” But back to “Endgame.” “I think it’s a very funny play,” he said. “However, you have to understand, you’re talking to an actor. I have been acting for 50 years, so I am, by nature, and by training, expecting the worst. And rarely disappointed.
“But having said that, we have a good cast, we have a great, great play, and I have a great, great part that I have been working my ass off on,” he said. “It is one of the great plays of the 20th century. It easily qualifies as one of the great plays, most accessible plays, which means that it is not easily accessible because it’s not — it’s not meant to be. If it’s done right, you’ll come out with a better understanding of the darkness and humor and life. The meaninglessness and meanness of life.”
In Edelstein, Dennehy has found an equally kindred spirit, dramaturgically speaking.
“This is something that we worked out together, Gordon and me,” Dennehy said. “Gordon wanted to do this. This play is, how do I put this? I mean, I’m 78, I’ve done a lot of great plays, but this play is like carrying a little pick ax and one strand of rope around your neck and staring up at the Matterhorn, saying there’s only one way to this — let’s start.
“The thing about Gordon is that he’s — what’s the word? He’s a guide,” Dennehy said.
“I’ve been in this business for 50 years, and this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, the most demanding and, hopefully, the most fulfilling.
“Whether or not we achieve it remains to be seen,” Dennehy said. “I think we have a shot at it. That’s the best you can hope for. And that’s the challenge.”