Review: WAITING FOR GODOT at Corrib Theatre

It’s a good time to ask existential questions. Corrib Theatre’s thoughtful production of WAITING FOR GODOT by Samuel Beckett is my first encounter with this iconic play. As I listened to the conversations around me, I discovered that along with first-timers like me, there were several people who had seen three, four, five productions of it, and they keep coming back to further explore the text and its elusive meaning.

The play centers on two men, Vladimir and Estragon, who gather daily at a barren hill to wait for the enigmatic Mr. Godot, who will supposedly provide some sort of salvation. Their world is desolate, marked only by a single tree. As they wait, they reminisce about the past, imagine a brighter future, and dissect the minutiae of existence. Occasionally another pair of lost men - Pozzo and Lucky, a slave - wander through.

Together, the characters form a mosaic of human interaction – bickering, reconciling, joking, despairing, remembering, forgetting, seeking connection. The dialogue is rambling and poignant. Nothing much happens. They have been doing this same thing every day for a very long time. Godot never arrives. Does he even exist?

This is an intimate play, and Patty Gallagher’s direction plus the physical space of CoHo Theatre serves it well. The cast – Roo Welsh, Karl Hanover, Jonathan Cullen, Doren Elias, and Max O’Hare – brings the characters to life with humor and humanity. I vacillated between wanting to comfort them and wanting to slap them. Cullen especially makes an impact as Pozzo, a man so cruel and callous in his treatment of Lucky, and at the same time so insecure that he can’t figure out how to sit down. And Hanover is wonderful as Estragon – one moment contemplating suicide, the next gleeful at the prospect of a carrot.

I won’t pretend to fully grasp the play’s depths – perhaps one day, after my fourth or fifth viewing, I’ll feel closer to understanding. But I do know how it made me feel – both hopeless and hopeful, alternately disgusted and enchanted by humanity, anxious to make the most of every day, and extremely grateful to have someone with whom to share the journey of life.

WAITING FOR GODOT will not provide answers to any existential questions weighing on your mind. But it might make you feel a little less alone in the asking. The play runs through Dec. 15. Details and tickets here.

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