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REVIEW by A.E.Watterson
Gate Theatre
Dublin
Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot
Photo courtesy of Anthony Woods
by Samuel Beckett
Directed by Walter D Asmus.
25th April - 27th May
Let us not waste our time in idle discourse: a review of Waiting for Godot at The Gate Theatre, Dublin,
24th May, 2006
The Gate Theatre is a definitive Dublin institution. Resting at the head of O’Connell Street, past the various Joycean monuments and a towering obelisk, it has been offering the city the best of theatre since its inception in 1928. Since then, the archives list reads as a who’s who, and a what’s what, of theatre. Ibsen, Shakespeare, Chekhov, Pinter. The Beckett festival of 1991, where the full complement of plays were performed. Various tours, both participant and recipient. Then, this, the Beckett centenary festival, running contemporaneously with the Barbican in London.
And quite a festival it is. John Hurt as Krapp in Krapp’s Last Tape, Michael Gambon in a new stage adaptation of the television play Eh Joe, and, of course, this, Waiting for Godot. Never have I seen a play where the actors had a greater commitment or passion for the work in question. Beckett’s 1975 Berlin production is widely regarded as the ultimate Godot, but Walter D. Asmus’ must surely challenge or, at least, equal it. This was a shockingly good version of Beckett’s 1949 classic. All four adult characters are veterans of play and playwright, and it shows. Barry McGovern plays a truly intense Vladimir, whilst Johnny Murphy holds the other end of the rope as a darkly comedic Estragon. Their characters, swathed in grey, fall in and out of the starkly inhumane set with its lone tree, exhibiting one less branch than Beckett stated minimum. A small point, for sure, although not so small as that raised in a conversation overheard at the interval regarding the inauthenticity of the characters’ rounded bowler hats (round is out, it seems, in Dublin at least).
Waiting for Godot
Photo courtesy of Anthony Woods
Missing branches aside, nothing else is untrue to the play, and to Beckett himself. Barry McGovern is a simply outstanding Vladimir. Having played both sides of this particular duo, he is in a good position to be so. Johnny Murphy’s ad-libs (surely displeasing the gentlemen of the bowler hat anecdote) added greatly to his bumbling Estragon. The enjoyment he appeared to have in playing Estragon simply glowed from the stage. The relationship between the two was taut and mercurial, a true evocation of Didi and Gogo.
Alan Stanford as Pozzo played a wonderfully camp version of the play’s bully, receiving his crushing demise in the second act. His opposite number, Lucky, played by Stephen Brennan, was a glowering centre to the play, despite a limited dialogue. What dialogue did have was a treat to behold. The monologue at the end of the first act was delivered with an almost possessed perfection, the audience thrown back into their seats with the force.
Waiting for Godot
Photo courtesy of Anthony Woods
The two relationships were played out on the dark stage over the course of the night, offset by the small-scale grandeur of the theatre. Of course, we know that Godot will never come, but the blow was just as crushing for the audience as it was for Vladimir and Estragon. It was purgatory indeed to watch McGovern and Murphy push their characters to the conclusion of the play. Their desperation, clear on the page, leapt bountifully from it in their expert hands. It seems a shame that Godot does not come, not for the extension drudging bind, not for their unfinished sentence, but for the simple fact that he missed this wonderful spectacle.
http://www.gate-theatre.ie/
All seats: €28, preview €18
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