WAITING FOR GODOT, THEATRE ROYAL HAYMARKET, LONDON
★★★★★
On a barren landscape, made interesting only by a rock and a tree that is devoid of leaves, Estragon and Vladimir meet to wait… and wait… and wait for the illusive Godot. So begins Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot, a play that, after its premiere on 5 January 1953, was considered to have changed the rules of theatre forever – it was later described by one Beckett scholar as ‘a play in which nothing happens, that yet keeps audiences glued to their seats’.
That’s not quite accurate, Estragon and Vladimir may be waiting for a man they don’t know, for a reason they are unaware of, and in the hope that when they do meet something incredible might happen, but as they wait a lot happens; the meaning of life is explored, new ‘friends’ are made, and a caring, tender relationship is revealed as the pointless, despairing existence endured by the pair disturbingly reflects our own deepest fear.
In this beautifully staged production, Lucian Msamati’s Estragon is a stubborn creation. At times confused by muddled thinking, at others sharply knowing, it’s a wry, nuanced portrayal that compliments Ben Whishaw’s Vladimir perfectly. Determined to keep his ever-fluid appointment with Godot, Whishaw brings a fizzing nervous energy to Vladimir. His may be fey and slight, yet he controls proceedings in a way that contradicts the fragility of his frame. Together the pair bicker like an old married couple, alone they are lost. Theirs is a tender, mutually reliant relationship that, in more comic moments, draws on a familiarity that in part channels the childlike innocence of Laurel and Hardy.
Joining Msamati and Whishaw in the production as wealthy landowner Posso and his hard-done-by servant Lucky, Jonathan Slinger and Tom Edden add to the absurdity of the piece. Slinger, heartless in his treatment of the exhausted servant, gives a multi-layered performance that betrays his reliance on Lucky and the truth of their seemingly one-sided relationship, playing through the fourth wall to engage the audience with unspoken ease. Edden, mute for the most part creates laughter from movement despite his torturous existence, it’s a manic, darkly-drawn turn that earns Edden a deserved round of applause when he finally speaks… and speaks… and speaks.
Completing the cast, the young Alexander Joseph, as Boy, refuses to be cowed by the experience on stage around him and gives as good as he gets.
Directed with subtlety when required and a mischievous sense of fun at other times, James MacDonald ensures the laughs keep coming without ever diminishing the despair of the characters and their circumstances. His vision provides the psychologically harrowing landscape Estragon and Vladimir exist in; a world in which tomorrow never comes and where all men are slaves to someone else as they search for the unfindable.
Absorbing, heart-wrenching and enlightening, this thought-provoking production shines a spotlight on just what it is that makes us human while triggering the stark realisation that, there but for the grace of god… A production to get lost in again, and again, and again.
Waiting For Godot runs until 21 December, tickets here.
In partnership with lumo.co.uk – Connecting #MustSeeTheatre in Edinburgh and London
