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The despair, hopelessness and loneliness hit me pretty bad.
It was kinda like when I watched a few George Carlin clips and it made me feel like a hypocritical self-serving asshole.
I mean, it's true, but you don't feel so bad about it until Carlin exposes all the bullshit we say and do.
And then I went back to feeling 'normal' and didn't change anything about myself, other than the fact that I have a little self-awareness than before. Basically, I know I am too lazy and inert to change for the better.
This production was brought in from Dublin, but I didn't know anything about how it was going to be. X and C had bought tickets already and I jumped on the chance to get a student ticket.
Anyway, I'm writing this now because I recently borrowed Peter Hall's Exposed By The Mask. This man is a great theater director and he unpacks a lot of interesting and difficult concepts in this slim volume. I like how he expresses the ideas very succinctly, making it accessible, without being annoying.
He directed the first English-language production of Waiting for Godot in 1955, 2 years after it premiered in Paris, and the play raised a storm of controversy.
Even when I watched the play on 23 Nov, the audience beside me didn't seem to get it. They didn't applaud when it ended and the actors were doing curtain calls.
This review lists the names of the actors of this production, which was very sparse and well done.
At first, the situation unfolding on stage was baffling but once you get into the swing of things through the amazing rhythmic (Irish accented) dialogue, everything started to fall into their absurdist place.
The abstract beauty of Beckett's words, being brought to life, was very special to experience.
The actors also did physical comedy quite well, using their bodies to express the unspoken closeness between Didi and Gogo, or the obvious power imbalance between Ponzo and Lucky.
Big props to the power of theater.
