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Culture Theatre

Gripping Godot

WAITING FOR GODOT By Samuel Beckett, directed by Soheil Parsa (Modern Times). At the Young Centre (55 Mill). To March 22. $10-$25. 416-866-8666. Rating: NNNN


Iranian-Canadian director Soheil Parsa’s culturally inclusive Waiting For Godot is worth the wait. Like any good production of this modern classic, it lingers in the memory with the force of a disturbing dream.

Peter Farbridge and Peter Batakliev play Vladimir and Estragon, Samuel Beckett’s bowler-hatted tramps who pass the time near a solitary tree waiting for the titular Godot. They engage in some old comedy routines, encounter another codependent pair, and by nightfall are told Godot will show up the next day, so they’ll have to keep waiting. Hope (or should that be despair?) goes on.

Farbridge and Batakliev contrast beautifully. The former has a touch of the pedant about him those tremulous line readings are intentional. Batakliev, with his Romanian-accented English and pregnant sighs, is spontaneous and vulnerable.

Vladimir and Estragon bicker a lot, but their companionship in the face of life’s absurdity is always touching.

The two also contrast effectively with Stewart Arnott and John Ng’s Pozzo and Lucky, whose power struggle is more pronounced and destructive. Arnott is all empty bombast, the fascist brute in love with the whip and the sound of his own voice.

Ng, his face painted like a terrified Kabuki figure’s, accepts his subservience without question. He moves like a puppet and delivers his difficult monologue with mechanical precision, trailing off into nonsense as if his batteries were running low.

The fact that Ng and Darrel Gamotin, who plays the play’s last character, the boy, are Asian adds texture to the play’s subtext, something Parsa obviously intends.

Terrific use is made of Trevor Schwellnus’s set, which is dominated by a raised disc-like playing area surrounded by lines of sand.

In the cyclical universe of Beckett’s play, it’s a smart design choice: simple, suggestive and archetypal.

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