As a play literally about waiting, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot hands directors and actors a unique challenge: how do you capture feelings of boredom and despair while still being tolerable? Canberra’s Street Theatre is offering an existentially and comedically strong answer to this impossible question, continuing the legacy of one of the 20th century’s most important plays.
Two men, Vladimir (Christopher Samuel Carroll) and Estragon (PJ Williams) wait for a man named Godot in a discomforting void. The characters have different approaches to waiting, with Vladimir expressing nervous energy – pacing and wondering – and Estragon slumping over, sleeping and complaining of physical pain. The two main actors bring a sense of depth and history in their long-standing relationship, even among the play’s themes of dread, exhaustion and forgetting.
The waiting is unbearable – and yet they pass the time. Diversions come in the form of the grandiose Pozzo (Craig Alexander) and his disturbed servant, Lucky (James Scott). At night, a boy (Sterling Notley) comes, and informs the waiting men that Godot “won’t come this evening, but surely tomorrow”.
The cast manage the downtrodden sense that pervades the play with expert comic timing in the trickles of light.
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Directed by Caroline Stacey, and boldened through atmospheric sound design (Kimmo Vennonen) and sparse-yet-intriguing special and lighting design (Véronique Benett), this production from The Street Theatre is a powerful take on classic source material.
Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett
The Street Theatre
Director: Caroline Stacey
Space, Costume and Light Designer: Véronique Benett
Sound Designer: Kimmo Vennonen
Cast: Christopher Samuel Carroll, P J Williams, Craig Alexander, James Scott, Sterling Notley
Tickets: $45-$59
Waiting for Godot will be performed until 24 November 2024.
