Wait No More

No Show Godot
Review By Lucy LeBlanc

Samuel Beckett's "Waiting For Godot" is a play in two acts, where two tramps spend time waiting twice for Godot who never appears. Not a lot happens, some of the not-a-lot happens twice or more. It sounds pointless, but it's no more pointless than life. Like life it has its funny moments and its extraordinary moments despite nothing particularily significant occurring.

Despite a lack of plot, this play draws you in and you find yourself, along with the two tramps, Didi and Gogo, wrapped up in the torments of waiting. Chris Stacey plays Didi with dignity and style and an ever present optimism about the future. In sharp contrast to this, Scott Shannon plays Gogo as a beaten soul with little hope for the future. Didi and Gogo are opposites that make each other complete.

Stacey as Didi creates a man whose dignity is constantly being chipped away by the elusive Godot's continued absence and his own quiet recognition of a failed existence. Although faced with constant defeat, he does not lose trust in a turn of fortune. His penetrating eyes and expressive eyebrows find triumphs in the smallest of things: spotting the first green leaves on a barren tree or locating the lone carrot hidden in a jacket pocket stuffed with turnips.

Shannon as Gogo creates a man whose body has taken rebellion against him, as witnessed by a permanently hunched body, a scraggly beard, and aching feet. Yet his eyes stare out in hope as he questions why Godot's presence is so important. Oft times he alludes to suicide (hanging himself from the tree) and beatings he receives from "them." When a bone is tossed to the ground he stares at it as if a feast has been put before him. Gogo is at times pathetic, at times hilarious, but ultimately heartbreaking.

As for the supporting roles of Pozzo (played by Thomas Goud) and Lucky (played by Andrew Jones), they are so powerful they stole the show from the lead players. Thomas Goud commanded the stage in his role of Pozzo. From his booming voice to his physical presence on the stage, he captures the self-majesty of Pozzo with enough humor to elicit many belly laughs from the appreciative audience. Goud is no mere clown in this role as he shows in the second act when he returns to the stage as a blind Pozzo that the audience sympathesizes with when they see how this would-be titan has fallen.

Andrew Jones embodies the role of the ironically named slave Lucky and says more with a sigh and a look than many actors could say with a well written line. His haunting gaze of silent agony and trembling body represents years of suffering under a cruel master. When Lucky finally speaks his soliloquy of wild intellectual double-talk, the audience is shocked and entertained by the energy behind this rant. Jones is amazing throughout this soliloquy as he barrels through it into a madness of frentic wordplay. Just watching Jones made me feel totally spent.

The performances in this play were top notch and director Robert Moore skilfully handles Beckett's classic play and achieves the definitive balance between comedy and despair. Kudos to Moore and the cast, this Godot is well worth waiting for.