The
redoubtable Soulpepper company has mounted a superb production of Samuel
Beckett’s Waiting for Godot directed by Daniel Brooks. It features outstanding
performances by Oliver Dennis as Estragon and Diego Matamoros as Vladimir.
Waiting
for Godot has
established itself as a classic in the almost seventy years since it was
written but the same question has been asked since its first performance in
1953: What does it mean? Beckett gave a precise answer by asking another
question: “What does it mean to you.”
That is
perhaps the best answer. The play means whatever each viewer extracts from all
the apparently pointless talking about nothing, trading of hats, playing of
games, struggling with boots and waiting.
Diego Matamoros, Rick Roberts and Oliver Dennis, photo: Cylla
von Tiedemann
There are
many issues raised, of course, from the violence meted on Estragon who seems to
be beaten regularly by thugs, to the cruel treatment of Lucky (Alex McCooeye)
by his owner Pozzo (Rick Roberts). One can make much of the appearance of the
Boy (Richie Lawrence) as well.
In the end
the best explanation about the play may have been given by the great ballerina Anna
Pavlova (who never saw the play) whose comment about the meaning of her dancing
may be paraphrased to apply to what Beckett may have meant by his play: If he
could say what the play meant, he wouldn’t have written it.
In other
words, we are on our own about what the play means. What struck me while
watching the Soulpepper production is the story of the two thieves that Vladimir
tells Estragon near the beginning of the play. Two thieves who were crucified
with “our Saviour” and according to one Evangelist only, one of them was saved.
Vladimir and Estragon are tramps and I found an immediate relationship between
them and the thieves of the New Testament.
Near the end of the play, Estragon
says that he will go barefoot like Christ and that all his life he has compared
himself to Christ. The tramps ask for God’s pity. Godot is of course referred
to as their saviour if he ever comes and his name does contain the word God.
The most
striking comment in this Christian line of references is Vladimir’s question to
himself during his brief reverie near the end of the play: “Was I sleeping
while the others suffered?”
Matamoros
and Dennis play with and against each other brilliantly as the two tramps who
are lost in the universe. Roberts struck me as a
bit too matter-of-fact in the first act but he showed his brilliant talent in
the second act as the blind Pozzo. McCooeye has the thankless role of the
abused slave and then has to recite a couple of pages of Beckettian “drivel”
that must have tested his ability to memorize and deliver. Bravo.
Brooks has
a sure feel for Beckett and the only observation I will make is that there is
very little humour in the production. Vladimir and Estragon are aware of their
circumstances and I think they are deliberately funny at times but Brooks decided
not to play up that aspect in this production.
Waiting
for Godot, like all
great plays, creates its own universe and has an inexhaustible treasury of
meanings and explanations. The only one that counts, however, is your own which
of necessity will always be tentative. See
the play and find your own mileposts and meaning.
_________
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett opened on September 14 and
will run until October 7, 2017 at
the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 55 Tank House
Lane, Toronto, Ontario. www.soulpepper.ca
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