Alvin Epstein

Alvin Epstein May 14 1925 December 10 2018 was an American actor and director He was a founding member of both the American Repertory Theater and Yale Repertory Theatre He was particularly admired for his performances in the plays of Samuel Beckett He also served as Artistic Director at the Guthrie Theater Born in the Bronx Epstein was the son of Harry Epstein a physician and his wife Goldie Epstein née Rudnick He graduated from the High School of Music Art in Manhattan and the Queens College City University of New York After serving in the United States Army during World War II in Germany he studied dance in New York with Martha Graham and mime in Paris His early performances in New York City included appearing in mimes with Marcel Marceau In 1956 he made his Broadway debut as the Fool in Orson Welles 1956 production of William Shakespears King Lear That same year he portrayed the slave Lucky in the Broadway premiere of Becketts Waiting for Godot Epstein continued to appear in many productions of Becketts plays including Clov the servant in the United States premiere of Endgame in 1958 He portrayed two more characters in that play during his career Hamm Clovs tyrannical blind master in a 1984 OffBroadway production that he also directed at the Samuel Beckett Theater and Hamms aged father Nagg who lives in a garbage can performed at the Irish Repertory Theatre in Manhattan in 2005 and again in 2008 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music