Waiting For Godot
They wait in the first act. They wait in the second act. It's a good bet Vladimir and Estragon, protagonists of Samuel Beckett's Godot, will be waiting long after the curtain closes. For 50-plus years, the purpose (or purposelessness) of their wait has been modernist drama's riddle wrapped in an enigma inside a mystery. It's good news that Beckett makes the waiting so marvelously worth our time, and so paradoxical. The sadly clownish Didi and Gogo and their friends are funny and immensely touching. A great Godot wears us out — and leaves us giddily exhilarated.
Ah, but there's the other riddle: Where to find that great Godot ? The play, a genuine, Nobel-certified masterpiece, has been taken over by colleges and amateur theater groups looking to do something auteurish with it. And in a further complication, though Beckett himself has been dead for 16 years, his estate continues to oversee productions in an often dictatorial way. They know what they want, these Beckett folks, and they won't tolerate anything else.
Happily for us, Dublin's estimable Gate Theatre brings an approved staging. More than approved, it's been raved about: "Probably the closest we will ever get to the perfect official Godot," the Irish Times tells us. Let's go see if they're right. If they're not, we'll have to wait.
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