WAITING FOR GODOT Reviews — Page 2

Ticket sales and capacity has been wonderful thus far. I think they're going to do quite well.

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Doesn't matter if they "do well". They're run by Roundabout, which assures them a full run. Roundabout shows always have high attendance because of subscribers.

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The New York Times [with Ben Brantley] is Very Positive (although he doesn't think Bill Irwin and Nathan Lane have constant chemistry):

"But more pertinently, this Estragon and Vladimir don?t feel like a real couple except in their moments of synchronized vaudeville. I was glad to have contrasting actors up there. (Two of either would have been too much.) But I only rarely felt the poignancy of these longtime fellow travelers? interdependence.

I should note that Mr. Lane and Mr. Irwin are never more convincingly allied, like people bonding in an earthquake, than when Mr. Goodman is onstage. As well they should be. Mr. Goodman?s blusteringly genteel Pozzo explodes with the nonsensical tyranny of the autocrats in Lewis Carroll?s ?Alice? books. In his relationship with Mr. Glover?s superb Lucky, who suggests a broken-down horse trying to avoid the glue factory, his Pozzo embodies centuries of aristocratic entitlement and subjugation. (This is a performance that any student of class systems needs to see.) But Mr. Goodman lets us glimpse the tickling uncertainty within the stolidness. He is human, after all, which means his very foundation is doubt.

?I?ve been better entertained,? says Vladimir dismissively, when asked his opinion of one of Pozzo?s perorations. But if, as this play contends, all life is nothing but passing time that would have passed anyway, I can think of few more invigorating ways of both doing and acknowledging exactly that."

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/theater/reviews/01godo.html?pagewanted=2

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The Wall Street Journal is a Rave:

"Among the virtues of this "Godot" is the way in which it brings out the best that each member of the cast has in him. This is especially welcome in the case of Mr. Lane, who has been coasting ever since "The Producers." No more. As Estragon, the tramp with sore feet who was first played in this country by Bert Lahr, the Cowardly Lion of "The Wizard of Oz," Mr. Lane has renewed himself: His acting in "Godot" is fresh and unforced. Instead of going for the laughs, he simply lets them happen -- and they do, in blessed abundance.

As for Mr. Irwin's Vladimir, all I can say is that I had no idea that this great clown was also a great actor. His flat, flip performance in Mr. Page's 2005 Broadway revival of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" gave no indication that he was capable of anything like the devastatingly understated pathos with which he delivers the climactic speech in which Beckett tells those with ears to hear what "Waiting for Godot" is all about: "We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries. But habit is a great deadener. At me too someone is looking, of me too someone is saying, He is sleeping, he knows nothing, let him sleep on.""

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124113336651175051.html

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Uhh, I had posted that one.

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John Simon is Mixed-to-Positive:

"As Gogo, Lane goes through his customary repertoire of facial, vocal and somatic tricks, which fit in with surprising felicity, conveying much sad-clown hilarity. John Goodman is properly despotic and oily as Pozzo, particularly good when, unable to rise, he wallows on the ground like a beached whale.

Lucky?s part of silent masochistic servility does not allow an actor much leeway, but John Glover accredits himself valiantly, especially in Lucky?s one outburst into a long nonsense monologue, a parody of prevailing French philosophy.

My problem is with the Didi of Bill Irwin. An accomplished mime, he does well by the pantomimic aspects of this (or any) role. But here, as in other speaking parts, Irwin?s voice is too mundane and his personality colorless.

Santo Loquasto?s rocks are better than the ones currently featured in ?Desire Under the Elms?; Jane Greenwood?s costumes are, except for the suitably gaudy Pozzo, as whimsically shabby as called for; and Peter Kaczorowski?s lighting is as ruthlessly illuminating as Page?s probing direction. All in all, a worthy production, yet leaving us waiting for the ideal ?Godot.?"

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601098&sid=aGLATMJ8rNfc&refer=movie

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Glad to see mainly RAVES

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Yeah, I noticed that too, Calvin...weird...

I'm actually quite happy with the reviews.

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Well-deserved reviews!

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HAHAHAAH Joe said that if you had the opportunity to "get donkey-kicked in the chest" and "get route canal" you should do it instead of see GODOT.

Helen and Mary liked it enough. Helen is a freaking idiot...she says to see it and she liked it but "she didn't understand what was going on."

Updated On: 5/1/09 at 03:44 PM

So what she is really saying is, "I was taught in school that it's good, so I'm going to say it is!"

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