Olivier and Tony Award-winning actor Mark Rylance joins the company of Simon McBurney’s production of Endgame as Hamm. Simon McBurney will now play the role of Clov for the duration of the run. Rylance and McBurney will be joined by Miriam Margolyes as previously announced, and Tom Hickey as Nagg. To facilitate the cast changes, the production will now open on 15 October, with previews from 2 October, and run until 5 December. Please note that Richard Briers will no longer be appearing.
Mark Rylance is currently appearing at the Royal Court in the critically acclaimed production of Jerusalem. For theatre, his other work includes Boeing Boeing (West End & Broadway – Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play), Peer Gynt (Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis), I am Shakespeare (Chichester Festival Theatre) and True West (Donmar Warehouse/West Yorkshire Playhouse). Rylance was Artistic Director for Shakespeare’s Globe from 1995 – 2005 where he acted in and directed many productions including Richard II, Measure for Measure, The Golden Ass, Twelfth Night, Cymbeline and Hamlet. For television, his credits include The Government Inspector (BATFA Award for Best Actor), Richard II and Leonardo; and for film, Nocturne, The Other Boleyn Girl, Intimacy, Angels and Insects and Prospero’s Books.
“Nothing is funnier than unhappiness...”
In Beckett’s one act play the aged and blind Hamm and his servant Clov co-exist in a mutually dependent and fractious relationship, with only Hamm’s parents, Nell and Nagg, legless from a biking accident, for company. They are condemned to a daily routine sealed off from the void outside.