In The Meantime, Nothing Happens

Such as it was, we entered the Moore Theater knowing what it is to wait, and then wait some more. Waiting is what happens in Samuel Beckett's seminal play, and waiting is what happens in life, to all of us, as we wait for any number of things, most of which will never come.

One thing hit us early on: these performers do not pronounce the name as we came to understand it: instead of Guh-doh, it's God-doh. During the Q&A that followed the play, we learned that this is simply a matter of dialect, and that Samuel Beckett himself would employ the latter pronunciation. We were additionally advised against thinking this had any religious connotation, unless of course, we thought it did.

So it goes.

The Gates Theater has been doing Godot productions since 1988, originally at the behest of Beckett himself. These actors know and love the material, and anyone with the opportunity to see them play it should do so. If we have any negative thing to say, it might be this: the Moore Theater, though a wonderful old place, is a massive echo chamber. The reverb is intense, and a spartan play such as this might suffer a bit from it, straining as we occasionally were to hear every line.

The show runs every night at 7:30pm through Sunday, and tickets are still available here. Additionally, on Friday the 9th, there is a pre-performance discussion on the influence of the play at 7pm, and on Saturday the 10th, one can meet the players at noon in the ACT Theater at 700 Union St.

So in parting, we will just leave you with the words of Pozzo:

Ah yes! The night. But be a little more attentive, for pity's sake, otherwise we'll never get anywhere. Look! Will you look at the sky, pig! Good, that's enough. What is there so extraordinary about it? Qua sky. It is pale and luminous like any sky at this hour of the day. In these latitudes. When the weather is fine. An hour ago roughly after having poured forth even since say ten o'clock in the morning tirelessly torrents of red and white light it begins to lose its effulgence, to grow pale pale, ever a little paler, a little paler until pppfff! finished! it comes to rest. But– but behind this veil of gentleness and peace, night is charging and will burst upon us pop! like that! just when we least expect it. That's how it is on this bitch of an earth.