Waiting for Godot
Posted on June 1, 2009 in Blog
Last weekend I went to see Waiting for Godot. Waiting for Godot is a play by Samuel Beckett about two bums waiting for someone named Godot. Godot’s absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play’s premiere. The version I saw was starred by Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. They did a great job in portraying the roles of the two bums, Estragon and Vladimir and are really funny in their ridiculous roles. Unfortunately the rest of the cast is rather annoying and the play as a whole is relatively confusing and didn’t really leave me satisfied after watching it. I wouldn’t recommend people go to see it unless they are Beckett fans.
When Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot exploded on to the London stage 50 years ago, it shocked as many people as it delighted. There had never been a play like it; two men clowning around, joking and arguing, repeating themselves, as they wait through one day and then another, waiting for the mysterious Godot. The combination of music hall, poetry and tension redefined what is possible in theatre, so that these days, Waiting for Godot is accepted as one of the most significant plays of the 20th century.
Beckett’s characters have lost none of their power to fascinate and amuse and this production, directed by the acclaimed theatre and film director, Sean Mathias, has attracted the sort of great actors that the play deserves.
Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart are both renowned Shakespearean actors at Stratford-upon-Avon, in the West End and on Broadway. They first worked together in Tom Stoppard’s Every Good Boy Deserves Favour for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1977 and more recently in the X-Men film trilogy, as Magneto and Professor X. Each of them has established their own iconic screen persona, as Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and as Star Trek’s Jean-Luc Picard.
Joining Ian and Patrick will be fellow masters in their field, Simon Callow and Ronald Pickup, whose extensive theatre, film and television credits span four decades.
This collaboration with Beckett promises to be the theatre event of the year.
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