Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended
"...You might argue that asking for more realism and humanity in such a play as this is off-base, and fair enough. Some like their Beckett this way. But I've seen this writer done so as it rips your heart out, forcing you to believe in the strangest of characters in the weirdest of conditions. For there is, after all, no condition more ridiculous than the one we all share, aging all the way."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” was famously performed during the siege of Sarajevo back in the 1990s. Watching The Hypocrites’ “Endgame” (said to be the play Beckett himself thought was his best work), you might well pick up on Hamm’s rambling monologue in which he suggests his guilt about not having done more in the midst of some great catastrophic event. And you cannot help thinking how this play might hit a nerve in so many places around the globe at the moment."
Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended
"...But the only moments when this production comes close to conveying the heartless absurdity of the universe are during the brief appearances of Sean Sinitski's doleful Nagg and Donna McGough's delicate Nell, who spend their wretched twilight days whining for biscuits and pining for the past, respectively. They get the least stage time, but they're the ones who stayed with me."
Gapers Block - Highly Recommended
"...The 90-minute play is skillfully directed by Halena Kays, carefully following Beckett's stage directions--to which the playwright demanded full compliance. The performances by all four actors are superb. The festive cabaret atmosphere of the venue makes the black absurdity of the play more profound."
Time Out Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...Sean Sinitski and Donna McGough are winningly game as Hamm’s trash-can-bound parents, with McGough’s brief appearance providing the production’s purest pathos. I don’t know that I’ll ever feel confident in my understanding of Endgame. But the Hypocrites’ edition, like those before it, doesn’t fail to leave me happily pondering."
Chicago Stage and Screen - Highly Recommended
"...Describing Endgame’s plot would be as futile as the existence that Beckett imagines (which is brilliant, because for any self-respecting modernist form is content). For 90 minutes the characters go about their clownish routines, engage in storytelling and forms of perverse play, threaten to leave each other. Nell dies. A rat is half-killed (offstage) by Clov. “We’re not beginning to… to… mean something?” asks Hamm at one point. “Mean something! You and I, mean something! (Brief laugh) Ah that’s a good one!” replies Clov."
Around The Town Chicago - Recommended
"...“Endgame” is both bleaker and more obscure than Samuel Beckett’s better known “Waiting for Godot” and that’s saying something! In the former, the two lead characters take consolation in each other’s friendship while waiting for Godot to appear: whoever Godot is, and whether or not he does appear or exist (in some form that characters can’t or don’t recognize) during the play, leaving us with one clearly defined if very obscure argument."
NewCity Chicago - Recommended
"...Although his character is most definitely the second banana, actor Brian Shaw gives a standout performance as Clov. He moves like a rusted-out robot clown, always at the beck and call of Kurt Ehrmann's preening, blowhardy emcee, Hamm. Sean Sinitski and Donna McGough as Hamm's trashcan-bound parents bring just the right amounts of hangdog loneliness and post-senescent cheeriness. The performances are in tune with each other, all playing the same hauntingly absurdist tune. That tune might not sound like real life, but it certainly sounds like "Endgame.""