There is nothing more tragic than an out of work actor. He is the ultimate metaphor for a man without purpose. Sean Mathias drew very cunningly from Shakespeare’s suggestion that ‘all the world’s a stage’ when interpreting this Haymarket production of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, by presenting this infamous piece of existentialism on the hypothesis that if this wooden ‘O’ is indeed the world, then what happens if the stage, the theatre, is derelict and the actors have no audience to play to?
Suddenly the plight of Estragon (superbly played by Ian McKellen as your grandfather with memory problems and an exhaustion with the world around him) and Vladimir (matched with a carefully balanced, physically ailing portrayal by Roger Rees) as two old Vaudeville actors without a theatre to play in, seems to make perfect sense, and draws Shakespeare’s metaphor into a thought-provoking post WWII understanding. The line is blurred between Beckett’s intentions and Mathias’s understanding, so that I am left wondering how it could possibly be interpreted any other way.
Upon entering the St James theatre, we are faced with another theatre on the stage; complete with jaded opera boxes on each side, a proscenium arch with falling beams above which threaten to collapse at any moment, a back wall to the stage that has been bombed and now reveals the exterior bricks of the building behind, and wooden floorboards showing the rake of the stage, complete with trap door (minus the door), and the iconic, barren tree of the script that has grown through the stage floorboards.
Vladimir and Estragon (affectionately known to each other as Didi and Gogo) don’t know why they are there. Through out the whole play, they don’t know why they are there. Quite possibly because it is the audience who defines theatre, and the audience is simply not there. They are a double act; the bowler-hat clown routine that Beckett has written in and the snippets of a double act dance routine, work perfectly for these homeless actors. We are even treated to a glimpse of their glory days in the curtain call, when the music accompanies their polished dance routine. They are, as Richard E Grant’s Withnail so memorably epitomised in Bruce Robinson’s autobiographical film,Withnail and I, “trained actors reduced to the status of bums.” We see evidence of the mindset of actors when Vladimir and Estragon engage in a game of insults and the ultimate abuse comes from Estragon: “Critic!”
Then along comes Pozzo and his side kick Lucky. They do know this place; it is their old theatre which has been bombed and is no longer. Their relationship further represents the deterioration of actor-representing-man; their purpose, their audience, their theatre, their world, is shattered and gone and they have become dependent on each other (in their first appearance, Pozzo ’drives’ Lucky on a rope, and in their second, when Pozzo is blind, Lucky is essentially his guide dog). Pozzo (an appropriately melodramatic and camp performance by an unrecognisable Stars-in-their-eyes Matthew Kelly), is a star actor reduced to the status of a bum who has not forgotten his halcyon days; he mentions his ‘manor,’ loses his ‘fob,’ performs a beautiful monologue about the night, and because he has lost his audience’s approval, he now turns to Didi and Gogo - “I have such need of encouragement! (Pause.) I weakened a little towards the end, you didn’t notice?”
Lucky (easily the most physically demanding part, and representing the lost and struggling man, hauntingly performed by Brendan O’Hea), performs a tragi-comic piece of modern dance – his first moment of expression in about half an hour of standing still, holding a large bag (later to be revealed as containing nothing more than sand) and a picnic basket. Pozzo tells us the dance is called “The Net. He thinks he’s entangled in a net.” Lucky, ironically named, dances this while still attached to the rope around his neck which Pozzo loosely holds on to. Let the metaphor of man’s struggle play on… Pozzo goes on to tell us, and we can’t help thinking of a bright and shining theatre where these two might have starred, “He used to dance the farandole, the fling, the brawl, the jig, the fandango and even the hornpipe. He capered. For joy. Now that’s the best he can do.”
One can’t help drawing a comparison back to Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guldienstern are Dead, a piece inspired by this Beckett classic, where we see again two lost souls being dealt some wisdom from the Player who passes through and muses on his glittering past, “You should have caught us in better times. We were purists then.”
Mathias has hit the nail on the head. Beckett, like others in the theatre, have, perhaps ego-centrically, realised that the actor and the stage represent man and the world. The metaphor makes sense of the absurd, and the most poignant moment hits after Vladimir, Estragon and Pozzo whip up a comedy routine around why Lucky won’t put down his bags (the pay off climax/ gag: “Since he has put down his bags it is impossible we should have asked why he does not do so.” “And why has he put them down?” “So he can dance.”). Suddenly, the whistling wind in the background stops, the actors halt their breathing, and Estragon faces out front. He realises his trauma.
“Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful.”
great review rits.
i do not have the money to see such theatre at the moment…. oh the irony….