Five Things To Love About Waiting for Godot

By THE ENTHUSIAST

1       The Tagline

The line at the top of the posters for Waiting for Godot declares ‘The Wait is Worth the Wait’. The Enthusiast takes bemused delight at the notion that ever since Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart last took their bows as Vladimir and Estragon back 2009, theatergoers have been eagerly awaiting the next production, drumming their fingers while frantically flipping through each new edition of Backstage, hoping against hope that Beckett will at last be back on the boards. If such a person exists anywhere on earth, 2025 is indeed their year.

2       The Play

Waiting for Godot is that rare thing, a play that everyone has heard of, but no one understands. The first three lines of the play sum it up nicely:

ESTRAGON: Nothing to be done.

VLADIMIR: I'm beginning to come round to that opinion. All my life I've tried to put it from me, saying Vladimir, be reasonable, you haven't yet tried everything. And I resumed the struggle. So there you are again.

ESTRAGON: Am I?

And yet very few people leave after the first minute. Not for the first time, The Enthusiast marvels at the sheer stick-to-it-iveness of the Broadway faithful.

3       The Set

Scenic and costume designer Soutra Gilmour has hit upon something extraordinary here. Imagine picking up a white wooden bowl, sawing off the bottom, and standing it on edge.  Then imagine that the bowl is gigantic – four stories high at the front of the stage, tapering to half that size backstage. Constructed of plywood but looking for all the world like marble, it’s a set as surreal as the play itself. Gilmour has been collaborating with director Jamie Lloyd for over 20 years, designing more than 30 sets for their mutual productions. This is one of the simplest, strangest and most mesmerizing.   

4       The Monologues

Waiting for Godot has two extraordinary monologues, one in the first act for Lucky (Michael Thorton), and another in the second act for Estragon (Alex Winter), a shorter speech that includes the line at the heart of the play: But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Both are deeply felt and deftly delivered. 

5       The Possibilities

Surely casting Waiting for Godot with the actors from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure is just the first in a series of plays soon to be revived with actors from classic teen comedies. The Enthusiast eagerly looks forward to Harold Lee and Kumar Patel from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle in I’m Not Rappaport, Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott of Dude, Where’s My Car? fame in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and the full cast of American Pie performing Long Day’s Journey into Night. The wait will indeed be worth the wait.  

The Enthusiast (offbroadway@outlook.com) is the pen name of critic Michael Collins. He reports back only on what’s good, never what’s bad. But what he declines to praise can speak volumes.