Thursday, October 11, 2012

Worth Waiting For

Last night's Godot was a thing of beauty. A sterling performance by a great cast. My only criticism, they looked a bit too youthful, especially the splendidly gangling Vladimir, but since age is just another matter of irrelevancy in the drama, this wasn't any kind of sticking point.

Great accents from all: the Irish lilt of most of the dialogue was gorgeous, and neatly offset by Pozzo's upper-crust Englishness. Distinct sub-text here of the oppression of Ireland under Saxon rule. Everything looked right. The comedy was, rightly, uproarious, and appropriately vertiginous switches of tone abounded, at moments like dropping off a cliff edge.

Given that the ensemble playing was so good, I hate to pick an individual out - but I can't resist saying just how good Patrick O'Donnell's Estragon was. Nithya, who was sitting next to me, remarked that she found herself picking him out all the time because his expressions were just so right, and I knew exactly what she meant.

The mystery remains. How is it that a play that deals remorsely with the emptiness of human experience always delivers something worth waiting for?

1 comment:

Trebuchet said...

It's like the Robinson's annual sale — they call it the 'Sale Worth Waiting For'. And there's always something worthwhile, even though the whole store deals remorselessly with the emptiness of human experience.