 "Photo: Joan Marcus/ Courtesy of the Roundabout")
When one decides to stage Samuel Beckett’s existential-absurdist play “Waiting for Godot,” most of the weight of the entire production falls on the dirt-covered, bruised, tired shoulders of Vladimir and Estragon (who refer to each other as Didi and Gogo)–or rather on the shoulders of the two actors playing the immortal tramps. It is their job to truly breathe life into this circular exploration of waiting and of the possibility that life is actually nothing but passing the time.
In the Roundabout revival of “Godot,” now playing at Studio 54, that burden is shared by Tony Award winners Nathan Lane and Bill Irwin, who play Gogo and Didi. One of the primary tasks that this symbiotic duo takes on is the exploration of some ultimate universal themes: Who is this being called Godot? What do we think (or hope) he will bring us? Will Godot, whatever he is, ever arrive? Will we even recognize him if he does? And what do we do while we’re waiting?
It is these themes and the play’s lack of temporal-geographical specificity that make “Godot” continually resonant, decade after decade, with audiences experiencing their own uncertainty. This play was written in 1953, when insecurity about the Soviet Union was the order of the day as the arms race gave rise to the possibility of nuclear war. “Godot” was a resounding success just a few years ago in post-Katrina New Orleans, where people facing massive and immediate uncertainty filled the theater. Today, once again, the play’s themes strike a deep chord as we experience anxiety about the economy and the job market, and find ourselves waiting for some possible solution.
One of “Godot’s” restless tramps is Gogo, played by Nathan Lane. Although Lane is an immensely talented comedic actor, his manic brand of shtick, which served him so well as the impresario Max Bialystock in “The Producers,” the drag queen Albain in “The Birdcage,” and the gambler Nathan Detroit in “Guys and Dolls,” is often too broad and farcical for Beckett’s melancholic-humorous play. Whether he is gripping onto Didi’s dust-encrusted lapels or falling off the lone rock where the two often sit or shrinking in fear from the servant Lucky, there are multiple moments when one almost imagines that he could be yanking the timid accountant Leo Bloom from “The Producers” and telling him, “Never put your own money in the show!!” And Lane’s tendency to shout when his character is upset, which has worked well for the frenzied characters he often plays, works against him here. It doesn’t seem like anything in this play should push Didi
or Gogo to that level of hysteria. The troubles the tramps go through feel habitual–as if they have played out these same scenes day after day-so Lane’s crisis-pitch seems out of place.
However, the ever-versatile Bill Irwin, who has tackled the work of playwrights ranging from Molière to Albee on the Broadway stage, brings the perfect mixture of attributes to his performance as Didi. Irwin, a superb clown, mime and dramatic actor, seems almost ideally suited for Beckett’s peculiar mix of existential ponderings and vaudeville. Irwin is clearly the more capable of the two leads when it comes to bringing to bear both parts of the oxymoronic subtitle, “tragicomedy,” that Beckett chose for “Godot.” Irwin skillfully switches between sadness, clowning and a burgeoning sense of panic and desperation. Irwin also has a wonderful ease of movement, which at the same time is offset by a feeling that he is all-limbs, lending a graceful awkwardness to his movement as well. He shows the same variety in his delivery, going from halting to rushed line readings, right on each other’s heels, in a way that feels true to Beckett’s rhythms.
This production’s pair of supporting roles is filled by John Goodman, who plays the imperious Pozzo, and John Glover, who takes on the role of Pozzo’s bedraggled, aged servant, Lucky. Goodman, using his size and low, rumbling voice to his advantage, is solid, if not outstanding, but it seems as if he is still working out his characterization and will get more assured as the run goes on. Glover, for the most part, plays the decrepit Lucky with grace, garnering sympathy from the audience, even if he can’t quite figure out how to handle Lucky’s 500-word torrent-of-consciousness monologue.
Gogo, Didi, Pozzo and Lucky all inhabit, or rather pass through, a seemingly random and bare patch of land. While the location of the play is, in many ways, supposed to escape one’s notice–“Were we here yesterday?” Gogo asks Didi repeatedly in Act II–the set design is still important to the production because, on a Broadway-sized stage, the two actors could easily be swallowed up. Designer Santo Loquasto was given the challenging task of creating sets of an utterly nondescript locale, based only on these five words from Beckett, “A country road. A tree.” In a way, instead of trying to create a sense of place, Loquasto had to create a sense of no-place, or perhaps every-place. He proves up to the job, designing a set that consists of the road, the tree, a boulder and the beginning of a mountain pass, which collectively are both distinctive and unremarkable (in the best sense of the word).
In this every-place, Didi and Gogo take us through almost a microcosm of human experience–they need each other; they hate each other; they discuss the logistics of hanging themselves; one helps the other get his shoe unstuck and they perform a madcap hat-switching routine. These mundane, funny, and at the same time, poignant goings-on are how the two fill the space as they wait. And, if life is in fact all about figuring out how in the world to pass the time, then spending an evening with Beckett’s tramps is a wonderfully thought-provoking and entertaining way to pass our time.
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