Waiting For Godot at the Guthrie Theater - A Review

     The thing about theater is there is no denying the necessary social component of it as an art. (I argue this is true of all Art - a very German conception- mostly to no avail) but a production of a play has to have not only the script and actors, it also has to have an audience and direction. The production additionally occurs in a specific time and references a different place and/or time. The interaction between actors, playwright, director and audience produces a conversation and the possibility of a meaningful effect on all those involved. For this reason alone I encourage people to go to their local theater and support the arts. As we see a major assault on the arts and theaters occurring right now in the United States, it should be easy enough to understand why. When we share stories (through images, paintings plays, books, ballets, music) we connect and interact with each other. We think about what is important in life, about others and their ways of seeing/hearing/understanding the world. We become better people. Please support your local arts.

     As a preview subscriber, I get a week to think about the Guthrie's new productions before the official reviews launch. It is a good sign when I find myself still thinking about a production a whole week later and the Guthrie's Godot has given me ample material to consider. I offer some thoughts here for others. I hope readers will do the same.

     Those who have read my reviews know that I am extremely picky and critical.  Let me start therefore by saying that this is a very good production that warrants seeing. David Strathairn is excellent (as is expected) and handles the weighty role of Vladimir believably and with apparent ease. This no small feat given he is speaking a good 40% of the time. This is a lot to memorize and render believably, especially when there is no solid chronology of events to help kickstart the memory. Playing a character who is at a loss for meaning and topics of conversation is (in my opinion) akin to the Herculean task of capturing the hind of Menelaus. ( I was going to say 'cleaning the Augean stable' but I guess part of the play's point is that the stable will not or perhaps cannot be cleaned). Strathairn carries the role of "Didi" almost faultlessly and keeps the play moving along in the way that it should. (No, not smoothly; haltingly, but with a modicum of beauty.) Jimmy Kieffer does a nice job with the more yokal Estragon. He has the right amount of naivete, and goofiness, although at times is a bit too self-effacing.  I am also in awe of Jim Lichtscheidl in his physical representation of "Lucky"and his ability to memorize utter nonsense and spew it rapidly without faltering. 

     I think one of the big problems for people staging Godot is that as written, the second act drags. As Vivian Mercer critic and scholar noted in The Irish Times in 1956 "..since the second act is a subtly different reprise of the first, [Beckett] has written a play in which nothing happens, twice." This of course is somewhat untrue, but does speak to the problem of presenting a play whose subject matter is the emptiness and absurdity of human life.

     This, of course, is where the expertise of the director comes in. A good director manipulates  the pace and the message, knowing how to pull an audience just beyond its comfort zone, without completely alienating or estranging it. One may want to point out the utter vacuousness of existence, but you don't want mass suicides after the end of the production.

     ...And that being said, Joseph Haj's is one of the least depressing visions of "Godot" that I have ever seen. I confess, I dreaded seeing the play again after so many years, but this time I left the theater in reflection, but not despondent. One of the directorial choices made by Haj to speed up the second act, seems to be the heightening of the comic absurd.  He does this by giving free rein to William Sturdivant in his portrayal of the obnoxious, over-privileged character of Pozzo. I sometimes have mixed feelings about Sturdivant's performances, but he has grown by leaps and bounds as an actor over his years on the Guthrie stage and one must always grant that whatever he does, he does with full commitment. Pozzo is so excessive and ludicrous in his self-indulgence, that the audience laughs at him and is pulled through the slower parts of the play. He annoyed me, but also kept me from getting bored.

     In earlier years, I had understood the relationship of Pozzo and his "menial" Lucky as one that showed the inconstancy of the wheel of fortune. In the first act, Lucky enters with a long rope around his neck carrying the bags of his master Pozzo. Pozzo follows barking authoritarian commands rope in hand. In the second act, Pozzo enters blind, led in by Lucky, but the rope is shorter and the mighty has fallen (literally). To me, it was a question of who was leading, of who had control. This reappearance is apparently only a day later, but when Didi and Gogo ask about how Pozzo became blind and the timeline, Pozzo, who after all has lost his watch, does not grasp their sense of "time". "One day, is that not enough for you," he cries, "One day he went dumb, one day I went blind,  one day we'll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you?"  But of course it is not enough for any of us.

      Under Haj's direction the play is less about the fact that any of us could be in the situation of any of the characters and is more about what we choose to do with the time we have here. Pozzo, like other authoritarians abuses those he governs and experiences no compassion when he finds himself blind and in a less privileged position. This is contrasted with the kindness with which Vladimir treats his less mentally capable friend Estragon. He cares for his swollen feet, feeds him, and soothes him when he has nightmares. Perhaps there is a message there about the blindness of the powerful to their own complicity in their downfall, but it doesn't seem to matter to Didi, to Gogo or even to Godot.

     My quibble with the direction of this version of Godot is that by picking up the pace, it also at times misses the other important answer to the plays' question. No, the question is not what we are waiting for. (We are waiting for Godot.) The question as we see above is "How are we waiting?" One way, is by showing compassion to our friends. Another is art, by interacting with others in words. Didi and Gogo entertain themselves with conversations and acting and even dance. But there is also an overarching theme of how we in the audience are connected by the words of the playwright. There is a lovely, lyrical passage in the play where Didi and Gogo make conversation alternating their descriptions of "All the dead voices. They make a noise like wings. Like leaves. Like Sand. Like leaves, etc." I wish the audience had been given more time to absorb the beauty of this passage as the two characters play with the words. 

     In the same vein, I wish that Vladimir's final speech before the boy appears at the end had also had more space and gravity. Although we know not to expect a definitive meaning to the play, it is one of Didi's longest commentaries and it feels important to me, even if it is to be undermined in the end. Vladimir says, "Was I sleeping, while the others suffered? Am I sleeping now? Tomorrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of today? That with Estragon my friend, at this place, until the fall of night, I waited for Godot? That Pozzo passed, with his carrier, and that he spoke to us? Probably. But in all that what truth will there be?..." Vladamir's questions speak to his humanity, which is after all, what this play is about. And they emphasize the importance of questioning and of words. We in the audience all know that Godot is unlikely to ever show up  for Didi and Gogo, but we also know that the only connection Vladimir may have with the mysterious Godot is the message he gives to the boy. "tell him you saw me."

What can we do for the arts in our world today? There is much forgetting in the play. In fact Didi is desperate at the end for the boy to remember that he has seen him. to know that he exists. Go to the Guthrie and see the play. Then keep the arts alive; tell everyone you saw it. Well,.....What are you waiting for?