In their cramped quarters Hawke (is there a better stage actor available these days?) and Leguizamo (who also has notable stage resources) are asked to do all sorts of irritating business. Okay, giving Elliott his due (which Beckett probably would not), this might work. In other words, as with so much of the world’s population over the past 15 months, Beckett’s world-weary men are living in (pandemic-indued?) isolation.
#Waiting for godot ethan hawke windows
These are not located on the same stretch of rugged unknown territory but in sheds dimly lighted by windows out of which that tree pathetically grows. This Estragon, wearing a New York Yankees cap, does tie on his bandana later.įurthermore, the Zoom approach, requiring Vladimir and Estragon to be taped in separate places rather than together, results in both characters-as well as oddball passersby Pozzo (Tarik Trotter) and Lucky (Wallace Shawn)-occupying their own spaces.
#Waiting for godot ethan hawke full
The first specific giveaway is the bandana mask that Vladimir (Ethan Hawke) wears after Estragon (John Leguizamo) is introduced full face. Indeed, he may even have concluded that Beckett’s magnificent entry could be taken as a metaphor for the world’s citizenry hoping every day that the pandemic’s end will arrive.
Without knowing for certain what was going on in his usually fertile mind, I’m going to guess he was thinking about the current global conditions and figured he would do a Waiting for Godot that reflects the pandemic. Nevertheless, let’s put the best face on how director Scott Elliott has decided to shake up the material. (That’s unless it comes in second to Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author.) But even if there isn’t universal agreement on that assessment, it will likely be conceded that the tragicomedy isn’t to be fooled around with. Waiting for Godot is, in this reviewer’s estimation, the great play of the 20th century. He was so proprietary about his two-act work that a forgiving spectator might understand why any director plotting a revival might want to bring his own vision to the work habitually appointed as its maker demanded. The inflexible playwright was even a stickler about the number of leaves hanging from the one scrawny tree he wanted displayed on the “country road” he economically calls for. For that matter, heaven knows what the vigilant Beckett estate will make of it.īeckett, writing in French and supplying his own translation, specified the barren land on which forlorn tramps Estragon and Vladimir pass time until the elusive title figure shows up to alleviate their travails. Heaven knows what he would make of the production now streaming from The New Group in association with John Ridley’s Nō Studios and Frank Marshall.
Samuel Beckett was well known to be fussy about how his Waiting for Godot is produced. Clockwise from top left, Tarik Trotter, Wallace Shawn, John Leguizamo, and Ethan Hawke in Waiting for Godot.
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