Letting go of Beckett's baggage.

Let’s get this out of the way up front: if you can get a ticket to see the Geffen Playhouse’s Waiting for Godot, do. It's not to be missed.

Got your ticket? Okay, let’s dive in.

Waiting for Godot is one of those plays. The idea or the expectation of the play is a thing in and of itself. Any production comes with a ton of "expectation baggage." For a lot of theater folks, it’s one of those texts we all have deep feelings about. It’s also sort of a proving ground both for theater companies and actors. Do you have the chops to make it come to life? For the audience, it’s a play that has such a strong visual sensibility built in — the tree, the rock, the bowler hats, the two vagabonds. Audiences walk in and before the first word is spoken they are comparing it to the Godot in their mind. They have an idea of Beckett and who these characters are that is often a far cry from what Samuel Beckett originally wrote (in French, no less).

Beckett’s text demands that actors and directors drill down through all those expectations and assumptions to a more essential core. For all its words, it’s a very simple but incredibly rich play. Simple in that it deals with really core human needs. For example, there’s a whole eight- or nine-page section of the text where all manner of topics are covered — but is really about a couple of chicken bones. It’s about hunger — and all the rest in those pages are just the hoops we jump through as humans.

That’s tricky terrain for actors. Beckett’s words are something of a steeplechase. They ask an actor to commit fully to each remarkable shift and incredible leap — some are profound expressions of existential angst, some seemingly mindless patter, and some fart jokes. The trick is they all have to be fully played rather than played at. If you’ve ever watched a horse and rider navigate an actual steeplechase, you’ve seen the harmony required between them. If the rider shows the least bit of hesitation or even worse anticipation, the horse senses it and all the poetry is gone. That’s the relationship of an actor to Beckett’s words... and maybe more importantly, his silences.

That’s where the Geffen Playhouse production, in association with Gare St. Lazare Ireland, really hooked me. I’d seen Conor Lovett, who plays Pozzo, do a one-man show from Beckett’s novels. And watching Rainn Wilson tackle Will Eno’s Thom Pain (based on nothing) at the Geffen a few years ago, I knew he was perfect. Neither one let me down. But how would the whole production stand up?

Often, the challenge of Beckett’s words and the expectation to make the play match a narrow expectation (it’s a vaudeville! or it’s an existential comedy! or it’s a laugh riot of slapstick!) sinks a production as they chase after the wrong goal with frenetic speed.

But here, close to the end of act one, the production sat in a confident silence. They’d executed all the "jumps" — made all the leaps at breakneck speed with a profound pathos — so they let the silence punctuate the moment. It seems odd to celebrate (in a production that nails so much) the one moment that seems like they are doing nothing. But when you see it, that’s the source of the production’s impact. They aren’t afraid of that silence. You’ll see it in the opening moments, and recurring throughout.

When you nail the words and the silence, all those other expectations come to life. It’s funny. There are some great physical bits. There’s the existential crisis. But then there’s the beautiful core of the play that is so often overtrod.

At its heart, Waiting for Godot is a touching play about what happens to us in relationships. You always get a taste of that from Didi and Gogo, but too rarely from Pozzo and Lucky. At the Geffen, Lucky, played by Adam Stein, is extraordinary. Lucky, that bag-toting slave has perhaps the trickiest piece of text when he’s told to “think, pig.” It’s often played as absurd, a sort of dadaist aria of nonsense. Here, it’s something else entirely. You feel for Lucky. You root for him. When, in act two, Pozzo and Lucky come back transformed by time, their relationship takes on a different depth. As simple as the metaphors are, don’t we all carry each other’s bags inside of relationships? Aren’t there rituals for each couple that, from the outside, seem absurd? Aren’t we all trying to "keep the ball up" in a way as time confronts us?

It’s the rare production of Waiting for Godot that both makes you laugh and touches you that deeply. Don’t miss this one. And if you’re lucky enough to have someone in your life who’s never seen it (maybe a teenager?) this is the perfect first production. 

Waiting for Godot plays at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood through December 21st.

This is Anthony Byrnes Opening the Curtain on LA Theater for KCRW.