‘Godot,’ the entertaining head-scratcher
“Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful!” declares one of the protagonists in “Waiting for Godot.”
On the contrary, my friend: The nothingness of Samuel Beckett’s iconic 1953 play is a joy to behold in the top-notch production at A Noise Within.
The idea of giving joy to audiences might well have disgusted the famously morose Beckett, and “Godot” isn’t uplifting, although it is quite funny. The play is an existential head-scratcher that eludes analysis. The critic Brooks Atkinson described it on the occasion of its Broadway debut as “a mystery wrapped in an enigma” and concluded that the play is “puzzling and convincing at the same time.”
Vladimir (Robertson Dean) and Estragon (Joel Swetow) are bowler-wearing drifters who hang around a barren landscape in hopes of meeting Godot, who is never identified and who, of course, never appears. Over the course of two days (or is it the same day repeated?), the bums bicker, make up and devise games to pass the time.
As is true with any canonical play, the pleasure in “Godot” rests in the execution, and director Andrew Traister’s strategy consists of having his actors speak Beckett’s words clearly and simply. The modest approach works wonders. Dean sustains a stunned expression through much of the play’s duration, while Swetow takes a warmer, more humanistic tack. The styles complement each other surprisingly well. Clearly, these sad buffoons were fated for each other.
To their sealed world Beckett adds two interlopers. Rich man Pozzo (Mitchell Edmonds, perfectly unctuous) makes a grand entrance whipping his hapless manservant, Lucky (Mark Bramhall). These two characters provide the play’s most conventional laughs, but they also remind the audience of man’s ability to be cruel to his own kind. After much verbal slapstick, during which the abused Lucky delivers a long speech about nothing in particular, they ultimately depart, leaving Vladimir and Estragon to wait out eternity together.
Why has God(ot) forsaken them? Perhaps the most famous no-show in literary history, Godot is often interpreted to represent the Christian God who has apparently abandoned mankind. The protagonists’ futile vigil assumes spiritual dimensions as they wander their Golgotha waiting for a sign, any sign. This production doesn’t push one interpretation of the work over another, and you almost wish it would, given the play’s minimalist inscrutability. But Beckett’s cosmic mysteries remain intact, as wondrous and frustrating as ever.
After last year’s outpouring of adoration on the occasion of Beckett’s 100th birthday, this production feels like something of a footnote to the grand festivities. But no leap into the playwright’s metaphysical ocean could truly qualify as a minor undertaking. Even when Vladimir bemoans, “This is becoming really insignificant,” we know full well just how false that statement is.
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‘Waiting for Godot’
Where: A Noise Within, 234 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale
When: See www.anoisewithin.org for schedule
Ends: Dec. 12
Price: $36 to $40
Contact: (818) 240-0910
Running time: 2 hours
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