Intro
Endgame is considered by many to be Samuel Beckett's greatest play. It has four main characters: Hamm, who is blind and can't stand up; Clov, who can stand all he wants but can't sit; and Nagg and Nell, who can't move at all because they have no legs and live in trashcans—yep, they're in great company. Anyway, this cheery crew is stuck in some sort of a small house that they never leave. Outside there's a gray landscape. Everything is dead. It's quite possible that there's been some kind of an apocalypse, and these happy few are the last survivors. Nothing much happens in the play. It's composed of a series of interactions between Hamm, Clov, Nell and Nagg.
The play is a tragedy. It's also a comedy. It is, in other words, a tragicomedy. Beckett sticks a lot of his characters in hopeless situations but gives them really funny conversations, which makes his work tragicomic. Like in his famous play Waiting for Godot, where the characters are waiting for someone (Godot? God? A dog?) who never shows up. In Endgame, they are living their lives in a dead world, where nothing changes, and no meaning can be found, whether you're stalking around the room or chilling in a trashcan.
So what's the deal with a play that's bleak, but also funny? Even though most plays have a few more characters who can walk and have names that are more than one syllable, this play can tell you something about the structure of all plays.
Quote
Hamm: You don't love me.
Clov: No.
Hamm: You loved me once.
Clov: Once!
Hamm: I've made you suffer too much. (Pause.) Haven't I?
Clov: It's not that.
Hamm (shocked): I haven't made you suffer too much?
Clov: Yes!
Hamm (relieved): Ah you gave me a fright! (Pause. Coldly.) Forgive me. (Pause. Louder.) I said, Forgive me. (Beckett, Endgame, 6-7)
Analysis
In this little interaction between Hamm and Clov, we see the tragic, and also comic, and also weird. Hamm goes from self-pitying with "You don't love me," to self-accusing with "I've made you suffer too much," to self-doubting when he asks (shocked), "I haven't made you suffer too much?"
This doesn't just mean you need to watch out for Hamm's mood swings. Interactions like this one show the tortured relationship between Hamm and Clov: sure, Hamm bosses Clov around a lot, but since he relies on Clov for everything, there's also some element of care in that relationship, and the way Beckett highlights that tension shows how absurd it really is. In fact, Beckett even belongs to a dramatic group called the Theatre of the Absurd because he's so good at showing the failures of human rationality.
Anyway, nothing works in a logical way, from the characters' circular discussions to their existence in a dingy gray room that might be the only place left in the world. That absurdity is why the play is a tragicomedy. It's very sad and very funny all at once. And that can tell us something about all plays of this type.