Waiting for Godot

Last Friday, I saw Waiting for Godot, starring Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. If I wrote the word "awesome" in capital letters, flashing red and orange with a brass band soundtrack, it would not convey the enjoyment I took from it. I'd never seen any Beckett before, but this is certainly the way to be introduced to it. I'd bought the tickets way back in February, and they'd been sitting on my bookshelf ever since, for me to stare at with excitement and impatience. This is what I wrote:

This was a hotly awaited production. With two major stars – Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart – together, there was bound to be excitement. This is added to the formidable reputation of the play; it was originally reviewed as ‘the most unforgettable and important’ night of a theatre-going life. It is therefore something of a relief to find that their relationship crackles precisely as it should. Limping through some strikingly realistic ruins, the two bicker and play in utterly believable fashion.

If one wished to pick holes, one might suggest that a less star-struck audience would gift fewer laughs. One might also point out that Stewart is just a touch too authoritative and self-assured at times. In general though, his performance is well judged. McKellen’s performance meanwhile is magnificent. He is vulnerable, confused and wise, with all the subtlety of a great actor. Simon Callow as Pozzo and Ronald Pickup as Lucky are overshadowed, yet their performances would be considered stand-out in any production but this.

To confront something is to make it disappear. That is a theme which shines through particularly strongly in this version. Likewise, this is a production which is extremely difficult to nail down. The play endlessly invites interpretation, yet constantly confounds understanding. The relationships, the events, the time and the place; virtually everything is ambiguous. There are playful hints – the mannerisms of vaudeville theatre; the Bavarian dress of Pozzo. Yet they are inevitably contradicted and crowded out as theories pile up. It is a credit to the acting that the audience are repeatedly dragged from their theorizing; the little sparks onstage are too interesting to allow the mind to wander.

This is such a production that people will one day say ‘I was there’. It is a special theatre going experience of dazzling subtlety and genuine humour. If it attracts audiences because it stars Gandalf and Captain Picard, then so much the better, for they, unsuspecting, will have encountered something great.