WAITING FOR GODOT

WAITING FOR GODOT

Talawa Theatre Company and West Yorkshire Playhouse

at the New Wolsey Theatre Ipswich

for The Public Reviews

03.04.2012

I've vivid memories of an all-women version some years ago, but this I think is the first time in the UK that five black actors have inhabited Beckett's bleak barren landscape. "Inspiring prospects," one of the tramps says as the houselights go up. There is a laugh, but he'd have to look hard to see many Black faces out there in the audience. Much the same last week in Winchester, I'd guess. However.

Vladimir and Estragon are everyman [or woman] of course – we are all trapped in this nihilistic Groundhog world with its lone tree by the roadside. And in this lively, assertive version by Talawa, with the West Yorkshire Playhouse, the deeper significances shine through, the brisk pace never too rushed for a cosmic insight or two, the theological hard on the heels of the urological.

Our two clowns are engagingly played by Patrick Robinson – Gogo in a waistcoat – and Jeffery Kisson – Didi in tie and handkerchief [not matching]. Their musical idiom suits the poetry nicely, and the hint of dialect makes rare sense of "calm - the English say cawm", and as well as the hat-trick slapstick there are moments of infinite tenderness, like the lullaby in Act Two.

An elegantly proud Pozzo from Cornell S John, very much at home with his fob-watch, his monocle and his meerschaum, making his Fall in Act Two all the more tragic. He has some lovely business with his vaporizer, and an inspired moment for "the same is true of the laugh". His ironically named menial, Lucky, is brilliantly played by the intriguingly named Guy Burgess: very much an articulate intellectual, this, despite the farting dance that makes him look like a deflating balloon.

Like Estragon, I've been better entertained. The simple setting, and the careful lighting [Chris Davey] are effective without being gimmicky, but the dialogue might usefully have a little more light and shade, depth as well as dynamic.

Beckett would certainly have found this crisp, clear production, a swan song at West Yorkshire for director Ian Brown, insufficiently tedious. ["This is becoming really insignifcant." "Not enough."] But I enjoyed the warmth of the vocal sunshine and the sparky relationship between this odd couple and their bizarre visitors. Appropriate that it should end its month on the road in Holy Week, if you buy the theory that the Limbo in which these two men wait is Easter Saturday ...

this piece first appeared on The Public Reviews