Waiting for Godot

4 Mar

Waiting for Godot is a seminal theatrical text for many reasons, not the least being that it has inspired two of my favourite critical quips:

“a play in which nothing happens, twice” wrote Vivian Mercer.

And, from a critic I haven’t been able to trace, “Waiting for Godot is a play that would be vastly improved by the addition, on page 2, of the stage direction Enter Godot.”

It could be suggested that the play does not so much assert that Life is dull and meaningless as against actively make it so.

Photo by Petros Ktenas

Photo by Petros Ktenas

Because precious little happens in the play, critics have often searched overly long for meaning.

I think it’s just a mood piece. Perhaps that mood could be described as a type of playful pessimism.

And such a mood clearly speaks to many, many people. Directly in front of me in the audience was a young woman wearing a Year 12 jersey. The caption printed on the back?  ‘Bored’ – with the ‘o’ replaced by a smiley face.

And this production by the Riverside Lyric Ensemble is certainly good fun. With a quality cast, director Cameron Malcher presents an entertaining show. Errol Henderson and David Attrill play Estragon and Vladimir with humour and just the right touch of poignancy. Pozzo (Erica Brennan) and Lucky (Clive Hobson) are utterly engaging. Brennan has great fun with Pozzo’s imperious nature. And Hobson makes Lucky’s monologue the show stealer it’s meant to be.

The staging is simple and beautiful. The play has powerful imagery (the tree, the boots, Pozzo’s rope – or is it Lucky’s?) and this imagery is allowed to do its magic.

When first produced, Waiting for Godot was seen as something very new, and for this reason it’s been considered ground breaking. And, theatrically, it is.

But in many ways, it’s one of the final gasps of a dying world view. The play’s sense that Life is depressingly without meaning is strangely quaint, based on the assumption that Life should come with its purpose pre-packaged.

Old gods die hard. 🙂

Veronica Kaye

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Riverside Parramatta until 7 March

http://riversideparramatta.com.au/show/waiting-for-godot-2/

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2 Responses to “Waiting for Godot”

  1. lisathatcher March 4, 2014 at 6:20 am #

    Can’t…
    Stop…
    Loving…
    Beckett!

    Reply

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Nothing Happens (Twice) - Little Soldier Productions / Jacksons Lane Arts Centre, London – Salterton Arts Review - March 12, 2023

    […] It turns out the answer to all three of these questions is to channel it into a new work, a play about waiting for Waiting for Godot. Mercè Ribot and Patrícia Rodríguez are together Little Soldier Productions. These two Spanish women met in London and make work mostly (but not entirely) in English. From the time they first spit-balled ideas about the sorts of theatre they wanted to create, Waiting for Godot has been on the list. Samuel Beckett’s 1953 play is still (apparently) one of the most frequently performed plays globally, an absurdist work in which two (sometimes four) men pass the time while they wait for Godot. Spoiler alert: he never arrives. Then it starts all over again. Is it about the futility of life? Or perhaps Freudian? Is it autobiographical? Perhaps yes to all. But one famous summary of Waiting for Godot is that ‘nothing happens, twice.’ […]

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