WAITING FOR GODOT by Samuel Beckett, directed by Jennifer Tarver (Stratford). At the Tom Patterston Theatre. Runs in rep through September 26. $49-$120, stu/srs $20-$55. 1-800-567-1600. Rating: NNNN
Taking the road to nowhere has seldom proven to be such an entertaining trip as in director Jennifer Tarver’s fine production of Waiting For Godot.
Samuel Beckett’s play is, for many, the theatrical essence of the human condition, a blend of the bleak and the comic.
As Vladimir (Tom Rooney) and Estragon (Stephen Ouimette) await the arrival of the title character on a seemingly endless stretch of wilderness road, they do everything they can to pass the time: sing, play games, argue philosophy and even contemplate offing themselves. The arrival of Pozzo (Brian Dennehy) and his servant, Lucky (Randy Hughson), offers some relief to their tedium in the first act Pozzo returns briefly in the second.
The play can only succeed with a strong central duo, and the pairing of Ouimette as the dour Estragon and Rooney as the often upbeat Vladimir marks one of the happiest collaborations at Stratford this summer. Expert clowns, the two hit all the funny notes in the pair’s exchanges, calculating the author’s words precisely, what to emphasize and when and how to use pauses. Their performances are a lesson in timing.
But the actors don’t shortchange the more serious moments, either, anger sometimes erupting with volcanic force and despair suggested rather than underlined melodramatically. At one level this is a play about memory – what we can remember, what we choose to remember, which past detail hurts less than another to recall – and the two actors touch us powerfully.
Watch, for instance, how Rooney shapes the urinary-troubled Vladimir. Initially the more sanguine of the pair, in the second act he tries to sort out who and what he is, what the truth of the world is for him, and steps into a moment of desperation before pulling himself back. Rooney suggests by the end that Vladimir might have lost hope, but he decides, quietly, to carry on regardless.
Perhaps the blend of optimism and anguish in this world is best crystallized in the repeated exchange between the two as to why they’re still in this one spot. When Estragon questions why they don’t leave, the generally positive Vladimir explains that they can’t, since they’re waiting for the never-seen Godot. Estragon’s response is a tortured cry.
Dennehy’s Pozzo, resembling a 30s Hollywood film director, should be a potent force when he enters this world as a self-impressed showman, but he’s surprisingly two-dimensional in his first appearance, striking a note of emotional truth only toward the end of the first act. He’s better in the second, where Pozzo switches from tyrannical to pitiable.
Carrying a jumble of bags and clanking pots, Hughson’s Lucky is a richer character than his master. He defines himself by his physical stance as well as his difficult monologue, the only time Lucky speaks. Hughson delivers the murky lines eloquently, under Tarver’s direction turning the words into an assault on the other three.
Teresa Przybylski’s set, lit by Kimberly Purtell, is as sparkling as the production: a single rock, a ragged-edged stretch of white road that twists diagonally from one stage exit to another, shiny blackness on either side of the road and a tree (Beckett includes it) in the distance. Maybe the road is what the characters need to stay on – and, metaphorically, hold onto – in order to survive and continue.
