Review: GODOT IS A WOMAN, Old Fire Station, Oxford

Walking into the Old Fire Station, it would be easy to believe the show about to start is a production of Samuel Beckett's existential classic Waiting for Godot. Hazy lighting illuminates a rock and an old-fashioned telephone, and the characters that enter are dressed in loose-fitting suits and black hats. Importantly, though, none of the actors onstage are male.

In their Fringe hit Godot is a Woman, Silent Faces theatre company explore Beckett and his estate's refusal to allow women or non-binary people to perform his most famous play, through a series of skits and spoofs on the play itself. The show is initially framed through a phone call to the estate which never goes through, leaving the characters in an all-too-familiar state of waiting.

The concept itself is smart and unique. Waiting for Godot is a text often studied in schools and universities, but we don't often think about it in terms of gender, much less see it reimagined like this. However, the show often feels disjointed, as though it doesn't quite know how to get across its point... or what that point is exactly.

Unsurprisingly, the characters ultimately decide they shouldn't be trying to play by Beckett's - and by extension, men's - rules in the first place. But this conclusion seems to call into question the purpose of creating this show in the first place. It's a bit of a paradox, and one that the show could perhaps have tackled more effectively. There are also sections that make the intended feminist point a little too explicit, such as when they list previous failed attempts to stage a female Waiting for Godot.

The show's strongest moments are when the connection to Beckett is at its weakest, such as a musical sequence setting key moments of feminist progress of the past thirty years to the pop music from each of the years mentioned. This section is joyful and high energy, worlds away from the quiet waiting of Beckett's play. There is a lot of potential here, and the history of Waiting for Godot is a strong jumping-off point, but perhaps not enough basis for a full show.

It's clear that the cast - Josie Underwood, Cordelia Stevenson, Jack Wakely, all three of whom also wrote the show - are enjoying themselves throughout. Their chemistry and familiarity with each other really comes across, which is essential to making the show's clowning watchable. The direction from Stevenson and Laura Killeen does an excellent job at pulling together the different strands of the show into one entity. Jo Palmer's lighting design also contributes a lot of added value, switching between the beige world of Godot and the neon world of pop music.

There is something unmistakably fringe about this show - it feels like it would be best watched with a cider in a plastic pint glass, on a dash between Edinburgh venues. It holds up slightly less well in Oxford, but is nonetheless a wacky evening of feminism and fun.

Godot is a Woman is on tour until 21 September

Photo Credit: Ali Wright

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