‘Waiting for Godot’ Review (LEEDS, UK)

WHAT: Play (Absurdist Tragiocomedy)

WHERE: West Yorkshire Playhouse (map)

WHEN: 3rd – 25th Feb, 12

WEBSITE: www.wyp.org.uk, www.talawa.com

HOW MANY TOBIES BARKED WITH AWE (out of 5):

MY STORY IN A NUTSHELL:

• Waiting for Godot is notoriously dubbed as the play in which nothing happens, twice, but it is also a masterpiece of the 20th century.
• It is essentially about Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo) coming up with ways to pass their time as they wait for Godot, the man who never comes.
• The script isn’t really my cup of tea, but is definitely still very powerful. The brilliant cast of five brought the play to life and gave one of the best performances I have ever seen on stage.

From left: Patrick Robinson and Jeffery Kissoon. Photo by Richard Hubert Smith.

MY FULL STORY: Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot is a play, I was told, in which nothing happens, twice. I was also forewarned that I was going to hate it, which is a fair warning given the fact that I never have much patience for plays like that – why exactly would I waste my time just to go watch someone else waste theirs? However, seeing as this is apparently one of the most significant dramatic works of the 20th century, and Ian Brown’s production (his last after a decade as the Artistic Director of the West Yorkshire Playhouse) has received multiple rave reviews, I decided to give it a go. Besides, I feel like I ought to be reasonable about these things: I would watch it first, and then say how much I hated it.

The play opened with a single dead tree standing in the middle of the stage. Vladimir and Estragon stumbled onto the landscape, and they stayed there. Everything stayed there. Sometimes Pozzo and his rope-chained slave Lucky joined them, but that’s all there was to it. ‘Nothing happens,’ Estragon vented. ‘Nobody comes, nobody goes. It’s awful!’

To pass the time, they would eat, sleep, sing, swap hats, philosophise, compare themselves to Christ, embrace, laugh, cry, piss, and contemplate suicide. They kept talking, they kept quiet, they kept each other company, but ultimately, they kept waiting. And then, the following day (or act), they came back and did it all over again.

‘Let’s go,’ said Gogo.

‘We can’t,’ replied Didi.

‘Why not?’

‘Because we’re waiting for Godot.’

The strange thing is that those lines summed up how I felt throughout the performance, too. I knew perfectly well that nothing was going to happen and that I should just get up and leave, and yet I couldn’t help but wait with them. In fact, I was unable to tear my eyes away from the stage at all. I barely even blinked. I mean, what if, maybe, just in case…?

And so I just sat there with everyone else for the whole two-and-a-half hours, allowing my emotions to be swept away with the lot: I was sad, happy, angry, frustrated, amused, bored and inspired. ‘There’s nothing to be done.’ Nothing, nothing, nothing, but to watch life go by in the most surreal of ways.

With so little but so much happening, this is an extremely difficult play to take on, and take in. All we had to go by was the characters’ conversation, for there was no music, no change of set or costume to distract and detract us from it. Jeffery Kissoon’s and Patrick Robinson’s performances as Vladimir and Estragon respectively, however, were magical. Not only did they portray the characters flawlessly and breathed life into the text, they also teased the subtle humour out of it with a quirky Caribbean accent whilst keeping everything extremely human.

From left: Cornell S John and Guy Burgess. Photo by Richard Hubert Smith.

Cornell S John’s Pozzo was, likewise, a marvel – perfectly arrogant and charismatic at the same time. But it was Guy Burgess’s Lucky who threatened to steal the show. His transformation from a wheezing, slobbering mess to a crazy intellect who delivered one of the most difficult soliloquies in the English language was staggering.

This is the first ever UK production of the play to feature an all-black cast, but I don’t think too much should be made of it as they were all just great actors.

So did I hate the play as much as I thought I would? Yes, absolutely. I walked out of the Playhouse feeling exhausted, as though half my soul had been sucked out of me, and I couldn’t think straight for the rest of the night. However, I must also admit that it is indeed a very powerful piece of theatre, and with a cast as talented as this, it very effortlessly became one of the best performances I have ever watched on stage. Bravo.