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The play is about two tramps -- Vladimir, nicknamed Didi, and Estragon, nicknamed Gogo -- waiting on a desolate patch of road for the mysterious Godot, who never appears. They while away days of fruitless waiting by various desperate stratagems.
A fat-cat capitalist, Pozzo, leading a wretched old slave, Lucky, by a rope around his neck, comes along, and there is some exchange of palaver. Act Two is rather more of the same, with the return of Pozzo, now blind, and Lucky even more mute than before.
At the end of each act, a boy shows up to report that Godot won't come now, but will come tomorrow. Both times, the tramps propose moving on, but stay in place instead.
It is remarkable how much melancholy wit or comic despair Beckett manages to pack into this simple scenario. Gogo has problems with his too-tight boots, Didi, with urination. The bare solitary tree -- miraculously leafy in Act Two, perhaps to suggest a season's passing -- elicits the tramps' thoughts of suicide by hanging, though of this, as of other ideas, nothing comes. The byplay between them smacks of vaudeville, albeit with some fancier references.
Parody Specimens
Altogether, Didi, who seems to be a parody intellectual, has problems in the genital area. Gogo, the parody prole, has problems with his cramped feet -- mere getting about. The pair exhibit a parodic love-hate, whereas the other couple display a comedic class hatred. Deprivation and frustration reign supreme, with only illusory relief in word games, which is Beckett's sour but grinning view of the human condition.
All of us wonder about Godot's identity. The readiest assumption is God, which, however, Beckett steadily denied. By accentuating the first syllable of Godot -- GOD-oh -- rather than the customary second -- go-DOE -- this production may defy the author. It certainly disregards his stage directions calling for just one scrawny and bedraggled tree, by making the tree bigger and providing a rather picturesque rocky landscape all around.
Theatrical tradition, though, has always relied on spicing up things with shtick from a savvy director and expert comic actors. So Anthony Page has staged in some extra comic touches, and the actors, too, may have supplied notions of their own, but without overstepping Beckett's text or intentions.
Lane's Tricks
As Gogo, Lane goes through his customary repertoire of facial, vocal and somatic tricks, which fit in with surprising felicity, conveying much sad-clown hilarity. John Goodman is properly despotic and oily as Pozzo, particularly good when, unable to rise, he wallows on the ground like a beached whale.
Lucky's part of silent masochistic servility does not allow an actor much leeway, but John Glover accredits himself valiantly, especially in Lucky's one outburst into a long nonsense monologue, a parody of prevailing French philosophy.
My problem is with the Didi of Bill Irwin. An accomplished mime, he does well by the pantomimic aspects of this (or any) role. But here, as in other speaking parts, Irwin's voice is too mundane and his personality colorless.
Santo Loquasto's rocks are better than the ones currently featured in "Desire Under the Elms"; Jane Greenwood's costumes are, except for the suitably gaudy Pozzo, as whimsically shabby as called for; and Peter Kaczorowski's lighting is as ruthlessly illuminating as Page's probing direction. All in all, a worthy production, yet leaving us waiting for the ideal "Godot."
Through July 5 at Studio 54, 254 W. 54th Street. Information: +1-212-239-6200; http://www.telecharge.com. Rating: ***
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