I managed to secure a free ticket to Waiting for Godot, currently playing at Theatre Royal in Haymarket, thanks to a fellow Twespian. Waiting for Godot holds a special place in my heart, as it was my introduction to absurdism way back in high school. Having studied it at both high shool and university, I’ve seen countless filmed productions and quite a few staged excerpts, mostly by students. As a result, I’ve often found it a largely innaccesible play. Even the Beckett directs Beckett production felt incredibly academic in it’s approach. Even though I love the play, I had written it off as a piece of theatre reserved for actors, directors and academics; a slightly elitist play that would never be popular theatre.
This was definitely the case when Godot premiered in France in 1953. Audiences left half way through and The Irish Times famously deemed it a play where “nothing happens. Twice.” Waiting for Godot features two four and a half characters, a bare stage save a tree and a bucket load of absurd dialogue. Vladimir and Estragon are two clown like figures who are stuck in an endless loop, waiting beside a road for Godot, the heavily symbolic, never present title character. They are joined by Lucky and Pozzo half way through each act, but the why is never truly explained. It’s a play that is heavy on symbolism and dialogue. However, this production manages to defy convention and actually present this revered text in an engaging and very entertaining way, and not just for the theatre snobs.
It doesn’t hurt that everyone involved in the production are seasoned professionals. When you enter the theatre, you are struck by the art of the set design. Shying away from the bare stage that is often usedfor Godot, Stephen Brimson Lewis has instead created a decaying stage, complete with crumbling proscenium arch and balconies. A bare brick wall stands upstage and a gnarled bare tree sits on the back of a sloping stage. It’s an appropriately apocolyptic design that works brilliantly. Similarly, the way that Sean Mathias has staged this is almost apocolyptic. Vladimir and Estragon are presented as two old men, beaten by life and feeling as if the end is nigh.
Ian Mckellen is a force to be reckoned with. His portrayal of Estragon as an aging, doddery Northerner is an interesting interpretation, quite often reducing the absurdism of the dialogue to the rambling of an alzheimers sufferer, but it works a charm. The very straight and sane protrayal of Vladimir by Roger Rees, who replaced Patrick Stewart in this revival of last years production, is a perfect contrast. The stand as a dichotomy, representing both hope and despair, optimism and pessimism. These two, quite rightly, were the definite standouts in the production. both Matthew Kelly and Ronald Pickup as Pozzo and Lucky respectively were both very good. The problem is that the two characters aren’t particularly likeable, and when standing against two formidable actors playing two revered characters, they didn’t really tans a chance. In saying that, special mention has to go to Pickup for Lucky’s thinking speech, which was delivered with such madness that it left you feeling slightly exhausted.
It was a shame not to see the original pairing of McKellen and Stewart, but Rees was more than enough. The only problem I found was that with someone like McKellen on stage, he makes everyone else look nowhere near as good. The man is one of the greatest actors on the stage today.
Waiting for Godot is playing at Theatre Royal, Haymarket until 4 April
