Review: WAITING FOR GODOT at Coal Mine Theatre

Currently on Broadway, you can see Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter in Samuel Beckett’s incalculably influential absurdist 1952 work WAITING FOR GODOT, in what many probably think of as Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure…or, perhaps, Existentialist Adventure, where the title characters only travel through the unbearable uncertainty of the human condition.

However, you can also stay closer to home, and in the far smaller space of the Coal Mine Theatre you can see Alexander Thomas and Ted Dykstra’s version—dare I call it, “Al and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”? While the production admittedly feels more like a bucket list item than a show programmed with specific intention, there never really needs to be a reason to highlight the timeless work, particularly when one can literally feel history wearing a circular groove around us. Coal Mine’s dedication to text and its intimate quarters mean that you don’t need to shell out for Broadway to get closer to Godot.

Director Kelli Fox’s stated intention is to largely let Beckett’s script take centre stage and get out of the way; that’s what Beckett asks for, and that’s essentially what the show does. Vladimir (Thomas) and Estragon (Dykstra) are two men down on their luck, promised a new beginning from the title character if they’ll only wait for his arrival. Yet, of course, that arrival never comes, and all they can do is exist in a liminal space between despair and hope.

Thomas and Dykstra are a solid tragicomic Abbott and Costello-like duo, delivering the show’s endlessly circular dialogue with increasing frustration and fatalism. Didi and Gogo are asking far more than “Who’s on First,” as they consistently question how their situation began and how it might finally end with the nervous exhaustion of caged zoo animals. 

Vladimir sometimes seems the only sane man with any memory intact; Thomas alternates between focusing on the humour of their situation and trying to comfort his panicked pal, finding equal solace and irritation in caring for his friend. However, he’s most interesting when he’s on stage by himself and temporarily relieved of his ringleader duties, as in the second act opener where he hesitantly sings what he can remember of a song with no end as if he’s trying to embrace what joy he can before it slips away. Estragon seems particularly lost in time; Dykstra plays him with the querulous note of a grandfather facing dementia and responding with bursts of anger and hopelessness. They push each other away and cling to each other in equal measure. 

 At times, though, it’s not entirely clear what drew them together in the first place. There’s a sense of gaping loneliness, particularly in Dykstra’s reedy, bleating protests, given equal weight whether they’re about Estragon’s aching feet or his desire to hang himself. Thomas and Dykstra also solidly root things in the body, as Vladimir rushes away often to deal with his bladder and Estragon scrabbles after vegetables in the mud, assisted by Ming Wong’s wonderfully shabby costumes so filthy they can practically be smelled. Their raw, visceral need is compelling, but in itself doesn’t quite make for the thread of warmth and soul we need to truly feel for these men and see ourselves in their desperate, eternal struggle. 

Scott Penner’s set of rocks and dirt is intriguing; it features the expected bare tree that both tantalizes new life (some budding leaves) and the prospect of death (will it support a hangman’s noose?). On the other hand, it’s also surrounded by three walls representing the sweeping sky, which not only feature holes for doors, but empty space at each corner. 

The sky is expansive, then, but not boundless; we occasionally see an actor traverse the space behind it before entering or after leaving a scene. The purpose behind this choice isn’t completely clear. It’s an interesting concept—if the sky isn’t endless, then perhaps there is a chance for an escape through these cracks. But the walls also make the playing space smaller, so it’s hard to tell whether the intent was to make the atmosphere more or less oppressive.

Jim Mezon’s voice bounces loudly off these walls as he enters as strident, slave-owning Pozzo, whose imperious, brutal torture of his servant Lucky (Simon Bracken) flies in the face of his almost childlike desperation to be approved of by the men he meets by chance. It feels strikingly relevant to see Pozzo look around for group approval of his casual cruelty, refusing to believe he’s unwanted, and then seem surprised that the people he incites into bullying might later bully him as well. 

Mezon’s booming, ruddy presence injects energy into the proceedings as he gamely throws himself into the slapstick aspects of the text, Bracken’s Lucky is a highlight, remaining completely blank and mute until he’s commanded to dance and then philosophize. His stream of utter intellectual nonsense feels like Beckettian ChatGPT, and his wide eyes, open mouth and slow-moving gyrations give him the appearance of an Edvard Munch painting.

Beckett’s words are superficially interminable, but filled with heartwrenching contradictions. We are promised many things that never arrive, but we must go on anyway. We must go on, but we cannot move. We cope, and yet we lose pieces of ourselves we can never recover. We begin anew each day, but it’s already too late. While Coal Mine grapples with these concepts more physically and intellectually than emotionally, the existentialist adventure can still take you to places both achingly familiar and entirely unknown.