“Waiting for Godot” — it’s a guy thing. The existential equivalent of hogging the remote, Samuel Beckett’s play was just one of those testosterone fixations this woman could never understand. A woman would never wait days on end for some guy — symbolizing the disinterested divine or no — who never shows up. She wouldn’t let her best friend be a doormat, either.
Consequently, productions of “Godot” have always left this critic bored or baffled. Reading reviews and looking over archival stills of the U.S. premiere of “Godot,” starring Bert Lahr as Estragon and Tom Ewell as Vladimir, you could detect the comedic strains in this peculiar tragicomedy, an absurd blend of James Joyce and Marcel Proust. This was one of the first “nothing really happens” plays, in which the classic structure of exposition, resolution and climax was abandoned for an enigmatic work in which two tramps confront their meaningless lives.
In many productions of “Godot,” the godless suffering of the characters is emphasized to the point where the audience feels as stranded on the lonely one-tree plain as the actors.
So it was a revelation to see the Washington Shakespeare Company’s frequently funny production of “Godot,” directed by Dorothy Neumann with the knowledge that even Mr. Beckett must have cracked a smile sometime in his life. Audience members were laughing out loud at the crackling comedic timing of Christopher Henley as Vladimir and Brian Hemmingsen as Estragon. “Godot” actually combines the elements of “low” or burlesque comedy with existential angst and discordant poetry, so the idea fits that the play can actually be humorous.
Mr. Henley seems born to play Vladimir. With his curiously demure bowlegged posture and apologetic stance, he reminds you of Stan Laurel and possesses that comedian’s sweetness and grace.
Mr. Hemmingsen’s Estragon does not recall Oliver Hardy so much as he does Bert Lahr — that touch of the gentle buffoon, the hundreds of ways he expresses a grimace.
Every time he asks why they can’t leave, Vladimir answers, “Because we’re waiting for Godot,” and Estragon lets out an ursine howl that is so funny and true that you never tire of it.
Mr. Henley is sharper and more acerbic than touching, which turns out to be Mr. Hemmingsen’s emotional territory. His stumbling, bewildered portrayal of Estragon personifies all the people who go through life without asking why. Together, the actors are peerless, their pacing and rhythm impeccably in sync as they spark off each other.
They are so good together that you rather resent it when the braying Pozzo (Steve Wilhite) and his tortured and humiliated servant, Lucky (Richard Mancini), arrive onstage. As disturbingly theatrical as is the image of a wealthy man in a circus-headmaster outfit yanking an old retainer by a rope around his neck, the Pozzo and Lucky sequences never quite measure up to the simpatico moments between Vladimir and Estragon. However, when the Boy (Peter Pereyra) arrives with messages from Godot that there is a delay, he brings with him such a rich otherworldiness that the wretchedness of Vladimir’s existence is thrown into harsher light.
“There’s no lack of void,” Vladimir says of their fixed plight. The opposite is true of this affecting staging of “Godot,” which casts laughter and humanity in the dark corners of Mr. Beckett’s world, where there is only suffering to let you know you’re alive.
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WHAT: “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett
WHERE: Washington Shakespeare Company, Clark Street Playhouse, 601 S. Clark St., Arlington
WHEN: Playing in repertory with “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” through May 22
TICKETS: $22 to $30
PHONE: 800/494-8497
MAXIMUM RATING: FOUR STARS
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