<i>Endgame</i> : The Nagg and Nell Moment in Studies of Modern Drama

ABSTRACT Employing the literal example of the staged dispositions of the characters in Beckett’s Endgame, this article discusses various causes for the loss of modern drama in university education. These include the devaluation of co-presence produced by the overwhelming presence of digital media, the shift to vocational majors and courses, students’ increasing passivity and incapacity for work in group settings, and less of a public presence of live theater in general. Education in modern drama has become like Nagg and Nell—still conversing but inhabiting trash cans left on a sad stage.