WAITING FOR GODOT Reviews

With WishingOnlyWounds2 championing the lovely ladies over at the Marquis this evening, I thought I would step aside and let it happen. That's the gentlemanly thing to do, as I see it. With that, I'll go on to spread the good word about a little show playing some eight blocks over at Studio 54. Tonight msrks the official opening night performance for the Roundabout Theatre Company's production of Samuel Beckett's WAITING FOR GODOT. Let us take a moment to welcome back to the boards Vladimir and Estragon and the ever-so-comedic stylings of Bill Irwin and Nathan Lane, John Glover and John Goodman. My best to all involved. Break legs, boys!

Saw this last night and was very pleased with the production. Bill Irwin's performance in particular was outstanding.

---

I absolutely loved this production. Each of the four lead actors' performances were so carefully etched and distinct that they kept the audience engaged thoroughly throughout what in any other production has the potential to be a very boring play.

I wish the cast and crew the best of luck tonight, and I encourage anyone who wants to experience fine acting by four pros who truly know how to embody their characters to take the trip to Studio 54 and enjoy.

---

The Associated Press is a Rave:

"Anthony Page directed Irwin in the clear-headed 2005 revival of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" Page's work here is equally crisp.

There is one more character in "Godot," a boy, alternately played at Studio 54by Cameron Clifford and Matthew Schechter. He appears at the ends of the play's first and second acts. This young messenger apparently has seen Godot, a fact that fills Vladimir with wonder and dread.

Yet even then, he and Estragon can't leave their posts. Despite proclaiming, "let's go," the men dither about giving up the wait. You'll find their indecision most haunting."

http://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/2009/apr/30/bc-us-theater-review-waiting-for-godothfr/?entertainment

---

The Bergen Record is Very Positive if not a Rave:

"...rwin?s restraint and Lane?s explosiveness refine and pinpoint the characters, giving them full-bodied, often humorous existence without diminishing a sense of their plight.

Also in the cast are John Goodman and John Glover, playing the two passing strangers who disrupt the waiting of Vladimir and Estragon.
As the imperious, apparently wealthy Pozzo, Goodman offers an outsized figure of appalling pomposity, while Glover is properly inscrutable as Pozzo?s slave, Lucky.

Anybody who knows the play has his or her own ideas about how ?Waiting for Godot? should be performed, and this somewhat rambunctious production, directed by Anthony Page, probably won?t please everyone.

But Beckett?s great work, ranging through most human emotions, and with lines and scenes open to multiple interpretations, allows for many choices. The ones in this presentation work very well for me."

http://www.northjersey.com/entertainment/stage/WAITING0430.html

Backstage is a Rave:

"...the real revelation here is John Goodman as the self-important Pozzo. Resembling a low-rent Sydney Greenstreet, Goodman dominates his scenes as he imposes his gigantic ego on the clueless tramps. When he returns as blind as a bat and falls in a heap in the second act, he resembles an enormous paralyzed bullfrog. He's unable to move but still demands to be the center of attention. As the enigmatic Lucky, John Glover endows every movement and glance with pages of subtext. At one moment he is a feral animal, snarling and biting at strangers, the next an unstoppable orator spilling over with polysyllabic nonsense when Pozzo commands him to "think." Even the little boy, played by Cameron Clifford at the performance attended (he alternates with Matthew Schechter), has a rich inner life.

Santo Loquasto creates a bleak yet detailed landscape, poetically lit by Peter Kaczorowski, for this screamingly funny and howlingly sad Godot."

http://www.backstage.com/bso/reviews-ny-theatre-broadway/waiting-for-godot-1003968310.story

---

I'm sorry, I think we all know I didn' t like this production very much at all but I have to say, I'm happy for them getting these reviews, but REALLY, Backstage?

John Goodman is a "REVELATION"?! The other three men and even the kid were leagues better than him. A revelation? I mean, really?

I thought Goodman was wonderful. Certainly not a revelation, but his performance was perfect.

---

Ha, bustopher there's a difference between getting better from being terrible and being a revelation. If Goodman was able to turn around a truly mediocre at best performance to one worthy of being called a revelation in .. what? ..three weeks, I, in the words of Ben Brantley, will eat my hat.


Maybe I will make another venture to Studio 54 after all...but then again, maybe I won't...

Updated On: 4/30/09 at 07:51 PM

USA Today gives the show 3 1/2 Stars out of 4:

"Under Anthony Page's brisk but sensitive direction, Lane and Irwin mine the humor and pathos in this simple but richly symbolic dilemma. Watching Irwin's thoughtful, restless Didi and the sad clown that is Lane's needy Gogo clash with and cling to each other is like watching two boys in a sandbox, learning primal struggles that will never stop informing their lives. When a red-faced Lane recoils from Irwin, telling him, "Don't touch me," then in the next breath pleads, "Stay with me," the terse lines speak volumes about the need for and impossibility of human connection.

Goodman and John Glover lend excellent support as Pozzo and Lucky, a blowhard and his miserable but oddly passive slave. Both men are, like Didi and Gogo ? like all of us ? prisoners of themselves. Santo Loquasto's scenic design and Jane Greenwood's costumes enhance the dim, ambiguous atmosphere: gray suits, gray rocks, a gray sky and a thin, sad tree that sprouts a few leaves in the second act.

We'll never know what the growth means ? is it a false promise, an allusion, a glimmer of hope? ? but Page and company ensure that we are profoundly entertained, and moved, as we wonder."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/theater/reviews/2009-04-30-godot-9to5_N.htm

---

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. GODOT is certainly a show that requires its fans to have an acquired taste. And I saw the first preview, admittedly not the best performance to judge for a show like this.

I was just being honest with my review...I wasn't going to give it a rave just because I thought everyone else would. And I know I'm not the only person who didn't like it. It's just a matter of personal taste when it comes to shows like GODOT.

Updated On: 4/30/09 at 08:06 PM

The Hollywood Reporter is a Rave:

"People will probably debate the meaning of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" until the end of time, but the reaction of one audience member at the current Broadway revival might say it all. At one point late in the first act, he rose from his seat and stormed up the aisle, and was then heard banging on one of the rear doors of the theater while crying, "Let me out of here!"

Somewhere, the playwright must be smiling.

The reactions of other theatergoers will likely be much more favorable, since this Broadway revival of the classic work, the first since its premiere, is one of the most entertaining and powerful renditions of the play that this critic has ever seen."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/film-reviews/theater-review-waiting-for-godot-1003968331.story

---

Great reviews for such a wonderful production!