Waiting for Godot

Sunday, 6 June 2010

There is something otherworldly about seeing A Great Actor on stage. The charisma, their character and yes, the sheer grace of their ability is enough to lift any text to a sigh-inducing masterclass. The performed work becomes a piece of admiration and delight…despite its difficult reputation for density and confounding profundity.

Waiting for Godot is not a play for the rookie theatregoer. Its famous one line critique of a production in which nothing happens, twice – is well deserved and there are long tracts, especially in the first act where I found myself taking rather long blinks (I confess during the annoyingly absurdist Pozzo/ Lucky section).

However, Estragon aka Gogo (Ian McKellen) and Vladimir (Roger Rees) as erstwhile Chaplinesque tramps were humming along, and any scenes where they played, pondered, laughed and ranted were sections where I had my eyes wide open; drinking in their robust comic timing, their expressive faces and forms, and most of all, the words, words, words of their creations at once pathetic and proud.

Lovable Gogo, with touches of dementia nipping at his heels (that’s an interesting take on Lucky!); and delusional Vladimir, a soul looking for some purpose in the purposelessness of his life are anchored by his fixation to this purgatory; Vladimir determined to outwait Godot, no matter how many pint sized messengers turn up delivering cyclical messages from the procrastinating title character.
(Amusing side note: spot the star usher tasked with making sure Ian McKellen’s boots left at the far front of the stage at the end of Act 1 did not go walkabout with a fan or eBay entrepreneur.)

It is part of the disappointment that Godot (spoiler alert!) never turns up, and instead the main visitations are from arrogant rube Pozzo (Matthew Kelly) and his hapless but disturbingly creepy indentured servant Lucky (Brendan O’Hea), which I guess pushes the action along somewhat and gives Gogo and Vladimir something to talk about (or run from, rescue or beat up). But I felt as if we were just putting up with their intrusions while we waited patiently (some of us with our eyes shut, partially conscious – yes, patron to the left of me, nodding off throughout the second act!) for the show to return to the far more interesting G&V two-hander interchanges.

Stephen Brimson Lewis’ set design however, was stunning - a starkly beautiful mirror world, with the sides whispering to a dilapidated theatre, a raked and broken stage, and a far wall high and grey, it’s flat a perfect backdrop for spotlights and silhouettes. A lone barren tree was the only significant entity on the stage, and yet… Act 2 opened and small leaves had bloomed upon its branches - it was as if a miracle had occurred during intermission, tiny green shoots of hope amidst the bleak terrain.

Paul Pyant’s lighting was controlled and significant. Working in orchestration with Paul Groothuis’ sound design, the start of the play was a white noise vacuum of indeterminate city/ transport resonance, it’s strip back to an almost murmuring bass having the effect of dropping audience chatter to silence as the stage became dappled and magical.

I love that about theatre. How illusions created by creative lighting can take you to another reality. Spotlights hinted at the vaudevillian past of the main characters as smiles and applause would erupt during various soft shoe shuffles and hat play swaps; and the cold stark rapture beaming like lasers through a previously nondescript door (seriously, it could almost have recalled an X-Files moment) was archly cool and terrifying.

Afterwards, my fan moment, a signature on my program from the visiting knight; a hint of sonorous Gandalf, no sign of steely Magneto, just a friendly man who also, without a doubt, is A Great Actor.