The current production of Waiting for Godotis my favorite (and I’ve seen many of them), an imaginative and very enjoyable take on the once-controversial play by Samuel Beckett. Two veteran actors, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, have a great time exercising their tremendous talents as they wait for the expected, never arriving, Godot. They are aided and abetted by Shuler Hensley and Billy Cruddup as Pozzo and his slave, Lucky.
Director Sean Mathias, while maintaining all of the philosophical cerebrations of the play, has turned it into a vaudeville show filled with song, dance and great physical schtick by these adept actors who communicate with their entire bodies: arms, legs, torsos faces and toes, and include clown hat tricks that entertain us as they try to entertain each other to make the time go by.
Scenic design by Stephen Brimson Lewis gives us the decrepit back yard of formerly upscale buildings, with holes and escape hatches, and the called-for tree. I don’t agree with his costume choices for Pozzo and Lucky, but they do work. Lighting by Peter Kaczorowski is just right and subtly enhances the proceedings.
Four accents are used in the play: Middle class English for Stewart, strange sort of Scottish for McKellen, broad Southern Texas blowhard for Hensley, and in Crudup’s amazing verbal outburst we hear an undercurrent of General American as he dances and physicalizes all over the place. But it all works, perhaps emphasizing their differences. It’s a great show, and I’m glad to see Patrick Stewart sing and dance in it.
