Waiting for Godot

Gratuitous Violins rating: **1/2 out of ****

When I made plans for the Broadway shows I saw earlier this month, I figured Exit the King would be an absurdist appetizer before the main course - Waiting for Godot. (Pronounced God-oh here, but which I'd always pronounced Guh-doh, on the rare occasion when I needed to pronounce it at all.)

Written in French by Irish playwright Samuel Beckett in the late 1940s, Waiting for Godot is considered the masterpiece of theatre of the absurd. And according to at least one survey, conducted in 1998 by Britain's National Theater, it's the most significant English-language play of the 20th century.

Whoa, pretty heady stuff, no?

So I was looking forward to the Roundabout Theatre production, featuring Bill Irwin and Nathan Lane as the two forlorn tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, who are waiting for the mysterious Godot. (I just realized that Estragon is kind of an anagram for strange or stage. Hmmm.)

But knowing that theatre of the absurd often has very little plot and kind of nonsensical dialog, I was worried it might not make much sense. Sadly, my instincts were mostly correct. Maybe I'm not smart enough or patient enough but I have to admit that I just didn't get it.

Irwin and Lane are kind of funny being sad and hapless. I thought John Glover was terrific as the nearly mute slave, Lucky. And it was fun to see John Goodman, as Pozzo, his master.

In the end, though, neither Irwin nor Lane one made a very lasting impression on me. I didn't laugh very much and I didn't take away any deep meaning. It's not that I expected a physical comedy with lots of slapstick. But I didn't care about these two characters as much as I should have. Honestly, I was a little bored.

Like many absurdist plays, Waiting for Godot was written in the aftermath of the death and destruction of World War II and the advent of the Cold War. Santo Loquasto's set design - a stage filled with boulders and one scraggly tree, certainly conjures up some post-apocalyptic world.

I guess you could say that Vladimir and Estragon represent two sides of human nature - Vladimir is more philosophical, Estragon more concerned with the necessities of everyday life. And the fact that one day in their lives seems pretty much like the next could be taken as some kind of metaphor about the futility of human existence, like Camus' Myth of Sisyphus.

Or maybe it's about God, even though Beckett always denied that. I don't know. You can read a ton of theories here.

My favorite theory is that Beckett is teasing the audience, that there really is no profound, deeper meaning in Waiting for Godot, even though we continually look for one. Personally, I think the answer to what this play is about can be found in the very first word.

I was so interested in philosophy and theatre of the absurd when was younger but I never had a chance to see any of the plays. Now, I've seen two and I think that may be enough for quite some time. I'm still game for a challenging play but I like a plot, too.

So, after all these years, was Godot worth the wait? I'm kind of torn. Even though this production didn't engage me all that much, the play is considered a landmark. Now I've seen it - and I can move on. I'm done waiting for Godot.

I've been waiting for Godot

Even before I started going to the theatre regularly I always enjoyed reading about it. As far back as high school, I liked reading plays and reading about playwrights.

For some reason, when I was a teenager I became especially fascinated with the theatre of the absurd. I read up on playwrights like Eugene Ionesco and novelists like Albert Camus. (You can see where this is leading - the futility of human existence. Even thinking about it now makes my head hurt.)

I don't know why I was so interested - absurdist plays often don't have much of a plot. I could never really figure out what they were about, although I guess I must have enjoyed trying. Maybe I found something appealing in the very fact that they were incomprehensible. Okay, I was a little intellectually pretentious, I know. Maybe I was searching for the meaning of life. (Unfortunately, I never found it, so if you know what it is, please share.)

Luckily, I didn't take my infatuation too far. I never started wearing a beret or carrying around volumes of Sartre or smoking Gauloises. Although I did read Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex and I once went to hear Eugene Ionesco speak in Boston when I was in college and got his autograph. I think I lost interest soon after that. I haven't read or thought about the theatre of the absurd in a long time. I'm still game for a challenging work but now, I like plot - lots of plot.

Of course, the most famous absurdist play is undoubtedly Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett. A poll of 800 playwrights by Britain's Royal National Theatre named it the most significant English-language play of the 20th century. (Never mind that it was written in French!) I first came across the title while reading Notes On a Cowardly Lion, John Lahr's excellent biography of his father, the actor Bert Lahr, who appeared in the 1956 Broadway production of Waiting for Godot.

While I did read Waiting for Godot a long time ago, I've never seen it performed. In fact, for all of my youthful curiosity, I'm not sure I ever saw any theatre of the absurd performed. How absurd is that! (This was before VCRs and DVDs remember. I didn't have many options). I guess, like Vladimir and Estragon, the play's two main characters, I've been waiting.

So I was pretty excited when I read an article in Playbill yesterday about a Broadway revival of Waiting for Godot slated for 2009. (Whenever I think of Godot now, I think of that line from the song "It's a Business" that producer Carmen Bernstein sings in Curtains: "He mounted Samuel Beckett, I don't mean it like it sounds.")

Steve on Broadway has a terrific preview of the production and the history of Waiting for Godot on the Great White Way. For more background, you can listen to a discussion about the play that aired on the radio program On Point in 2003, the 50th anniversary of Waiting for Godot's Paris premiere.

As for me, I'm just hoping that after all these years, I'll actually have a chance to see some theatre of the absurd on stage. I can hardly wait!