Arts Week with Judy Murphy

The first time actor Bosco Hogan worked with director Garry Hynes was in 1992 when she was Artistic Director of the Abbey Theatre. The production was Tom Murphy’s Famine and it wasn’t a great experience for Bosco who didn’t understand then how Garry worked.

A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since 1992, and Bosco has featured in several Druid productions in the last decade – most of them directed by Garry. He is delighted to be back again, rehearsing for the company’s Arts Festival production, Samuel Beckett’s Endgame.

It’s no easy gig, but “I’m in good company and we’re getting on famously”, he says of his colleagues in the show.

Bosco and Druid co-founder Marie Mullen are working together particularly closely, as they play Nagg and Nell, parents of the blind, tyrannical Hamm (Rory Nolan) who rules the life of his servant Clov, played by Aaron Monaghan.

Endgame is set in an absurd, post-apocalyptic world as the characters go through their daily lives – and there’s black comedy, as might be expected from Beckett.

Bosco won’t be drawn into explaining the plot and laughs, saying he’ll paraphrase an American actor who was once asked by an interviewer, ‘what’s the play about?’ and answered ‘it’s about two hours’.

In the case of Endgame, it’s even shorter. “The play is about an hour and 20 minutes,” Bosco says, adding “it’s a dramatic tragedy but also a subversive comedy. It’s terribly funny. And listening to the two boys doing their stuff, they are amazing”, he says of Rory and Aaron.

Pictured: Bosco Hogan: Endgame is a dramatic tragedy but also a subversive comedy.