WAITING FOR GODOT. To 18 November.
London
WAITTING FOR GODOT
by Samuel Beckett
New Ambassadors Theatre To 18 November 2006
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Thu & Sat 2.30pm
Runs 2hr 20min One interval
TICKETS: 0870 060 6627
Review: Timothy Ramsden 21 October
Nothing happens twice again, grippingly.
It’s a short walk from the old Arts Theatre to the New Ambassadors, but it’s taken Godot 51 years to make it. When Samuel Beckett’s play opened in 1955 London the Ambassadors (as it then was) was settling into the The Mousetrap’s long run. That, meanwhile, has made the even shorter journey to the adjacent St Martin’s. (On Saturday afternoons it’s possible to leave Godot by 4.50pm and be in The Mousetrap by 4.51pm for a 5pm matinee.)
But Godot’s made a far greater journey, from inaccessible anti-theatre, through over-obvious parable, to peak of the 20th-century canon. Young Peter Hall took it on when others wouldn’t touch it. Older Peter Hall still brings freshness to the inaction.
Many productions have contrasted the 2 roadside vagrants waiting for Mr Godot: the philosophising Vladimir and the earthy, appetite-and-comfort-led Estragon. Hall makes the contrast more complex. From the start the pattern’s there as James Laurenson’s Vladimir is seen staring upstage, while Alan Dobie’s Estragon struggles with his ever ill-fitting footwear.
But Laurenson’s light-voiced creation has the irresolute mind of the thinker; it becomes unusually significant that the only reason he moves quickly is at the bodily urging of his bladder. This dreamy Vladimir is offset by Dobie’s harder-edged Estragon, each line firm or demanding, whose stern questions as to why they cannot go meet the blank wall of Vladimir’s reply about waiting for Godot.
He responds with an increasingly disappointed vocal response and lopsided sagging; the active, impulsive person frustrated by forgotten wider concerns. Yet it’s Estragon who sets the pattern for looking to the distance, hand shading eyes, legs in a deliberate stance, or who has about the only smile as Vladimir wheels him about to fit on a shoe.
Terence Rigby’s Pozzo finely balances command (never overdone, he’s used to orders being obeyed) with vulnerability, while Richard Dormer’s white-faced Lucky is outstanding, panting like a cart-horse, presenting his long speech with a search for clarity: body and mind in one. It’s taken over a year for Hall’s Bath Theatre Royal production to reach London; altogether a Godot well worth the wait.
Vladimir: James Laurenson
Estragon: Alan Dobie
Lucky: Richard Dormer
Pozzo: Terence Rigby
Boy: Adam Hargreaves/Jack Lawrence/Jack Morlen/Joshua Sarphie
Director: Peter Hall
Designer: Kevin Rigdon
Lighting: Peter Mumford
Sound: Gregory Clarke
Costume: Kevin Rigdon/Trish Rigdon
2006-10-22 11:41:34