Since their first appearance in a tiny Paris theatre in 1953, Samuel Beckett’s iconic down-and- outs Vladimir and Estragon have rarely been off the stage. Nearly every evening, somewhere on the globe, they show up for their dubious appointment with a savior named Godot who never comes, filling time with games and musing aphoristically on existence. Hilarious and heartbreaking, Waiting for Godot is the modern theatre’s indispensable document of rootlessness, uncertainty, and perpetually postponed deliverance. Godot will be directed by Arin Arbus (Resident Director, TFANA) whose critically acclaimed productions for the company include her OBIE Award-winning staging of Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth. This production will reunite actors Michael Shannon and Paul Sparks, who last worked together for TFANA in Ionesco’s The Killer, directed by Darko Tresnjak in 2014.
Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour. https://www.ft.com/content/4c99b702-8468-4f4f-97ff-9dc0311aa726 These weaknesses mean that Arbus’s staging struggles to come together for much of act one. The cast then strike up a more coherent rhythm after the interval, grounded in a lively, physical style of performance that makes nimble use of Riccardo Hernández’s capacious design. Despite an ever-present limp, Shannon now barnstorms around the theatre, creating a pleasing manifestation of the tramps’ circuitous arguments. And the four men’s existential exhaustion is neatly summed up when they all collapse in a heap in the middle of the road.
Shamblin’ Shannon and Blazing Sparks: the powerhouse duo we’ve waited decades to see sharing the spotlight as Beckett’s tramps, threadbare in trousers and spirit. In what might be a post-apocalyptic neverwhere, they dawdle and quarrel and peevishly await one Godot (O’God?), who will never arrive. Estragon wrestles with his painful boot, trying to free it from his smelly foot; Vladimir periodically races offstage to urinate (bad kidneys). Sound designer Palmer Hefferan creates thin piddling in a shallow metal receptacle. I saw a hubcap, since director Arin Arbus and scenic designer Riccardo Hernández translate the “country road” stage direction into a U.S. highway; the two men stalk up and down asphalt and across yellow median stripes looking for all the world like Depression-era hobos who lost their bindles at dice.
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