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Bleakness and Despair Prevail in Beckett's "Waiting for Godot," Landmark Tragicomedy that Changed the Course of Modern Theater

Donald Gilpin

There's no lack of void," declares Estragon (Edward Staats) in Westwind Repertory Company's production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, playing for one more weekend at The Hun School in Princeton. Mixing comedy and tragedy, vaudeville and metaphysics, this existentialist drama does indeed invite its audiences to peer unblinkingly into the void of existence.

Written in French in 1948 and first performed in Paris in January 1953, Godot met with mixed reactions in its first productions in France, in London, and eventually in Miami and New York in 1956. The French playwright and critic Jean Anouilh quickly recognized Godot at its premiere as "a masterpiece that will cause despair for men in general and for playwrights in particular," but many failed to realize the play's deceptively simple greatness and profundity until after subsequent productions.

Vladimir (Julia Ohm) and Estragon, two tired tramps, spend the two hours of the play waiting, trying to remember the past, wondering if Godot will come as promised, trying to decide what to do in the meantime to help ward off despair. "Nothing happens," Estragon observes, "nobody comes, nobody goes. It's awful." Is this the human condition?

The setting, designed by Bill Wyatt, is "a country road, a tree." Pozzo (M.A. Young) and his strangely passive, downtrodden slave Lucky (Kathy Garofano) pass through in the first act and again in the second act. A boy appears briefly in each act to announce that Godot will not be coming until tomorrow. Vladimir, known as Didi, and Estragon, known as Gogo, exchange horseplay and philosophical conjectures to pass the time.

Amidst scores of critical and scholarly studies of the play and its deeper meanings over the last half of the twentieth century, Beckett himself remained silent. "If people want to have headaches among the overtones, let them. And provide their own aspirin." On the meaning and identity of the title character, who never does arrive to relieve the suffering of the two protagonists as they continue to wait hopefully throughout the two acts of the play, Beckett declared, "If I knew, I would have said so in the play."

Waiting for Godot explores a range of subjects from the mundane to the metaphysical, and most essentially seems to be about human beings struggling to cope with their existence in a world devoid of meaning and without answers to the most fundamental questions. For the world of theater, Godot was a radical departure from the naturalism that had dominated the first half of the twentieth century and a sudden plunge into a brave new world of farce mixed with tragedy, contradictory characters, unpredictable dialogue, minimal plots and endless ambiguities. The works of Harold Pinter, Edward Albee, Tom Stoppard, Sam Shepard, David Mamet, Tony Kushner, Suzan Lori-Parks and other contemporary playwrights are all a part of Beckett's powerful legacy.

A strong, professional Westwind cast, under the direction of Melissa Updegraff Wyatt, presents an intelligent and polished performance of this challenging masterpiece. Despite the pervasive bleakness, this is a relatively hopeful Godot. Didi and Gogo are obviously good friends here, and their friendship, if nothing else, seems to give some purpose, some basis for optimism, in their lives. Not much changes in this world, but Didi and Gogo do end the first act hand in hand and the second arm in arm. Ms. Ohm and Mr. Staats interact convincingly, with poise and humor, in the leading roles, winning the audience's interest and sympathy, though they do need more volume at times to project clearly in the cavernous Hun School theater.

Whip in hand, Mr. Young's harsh slave master Pozzo infuses the play with energy on his dynamic first-act entrance and again in the second act when he appears after having been blinded. His final observation before exiting provides much wisdom on the brevity of life: "They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more." Ms. Garofano's mostly silent, masked Lucky and Ms. Stults' Boy provide strong dependable support.

Were he still alive, Mr. Beckett, notoriously particular that productions of his plays follow his written directions, might well object to women playing three male roles in this production. And anybody who saw Bert Lahr and E.G. Marshall in the first American production or Robin Williams and Steve Martin in the 1988 revival at Lincoln Center might wish for a bit more playfulness and humor between Didi and Gogo.

What the Westwind production – so far sparsely attended – most needs, and deserves, however, is an audience. Beckett has never been known as a crowd pleaser (as Vladimir at one point remarks, "I've been better entertained."), and Waiting For Godot is certainly an anomaly amidst the traditional summer fare of musicals, comedies and Shakespeare. Godot might also be out of tune with the tenor of our era. In a society of MTV, home entertainment centers, a President who doesn't read the newspapers and a widespread impatience with any but the most immediate gratification – peering into the void to acknowledge the bleakness of the human condition is not a popular activity. So much the worse for our era and our society, so much the better for Westwind to produce this play in pursuing its worthy, ambitious mission. A large audience for the final weekend would certainly help this noble enterprise.

Born in Ireland in 1906, Beckett moved to France in 1937, where he wrote most of his major works. In 1969 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his plays, fiction and poetry. A minimalist from the start, he produced shorter and shorter works as he approached his death in 1989, commenting that each word seemed to him "an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness." Few works of the past century have provoked as much controversy, speculation, critical and scholarly debate as Waiting for Godot. And few have brought their authors such richly deserved immortality.

Westwind Repertory Company's production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot plays June 25-26 at 8 p.m. at The Hun School on Edgerstoune Avenue. For information call (609) 397-7331.