Review: Waiting for Godot

The good news is that I'm in good company. Sir Peter Hall has said that after directing the English language premiere of Samuel Beckett's masterpiece he didn't truly know what he had with Godot. Sixty years on, the received wisdom is that we now know what we have in our hands when we see Waiting for Godot.

I don’t. It is a play that, as far as I can see, continues to baffle. Two tramps wait for Godot. Who is Godot? It depends on who you are. A man or woman of faith will see Godot as God, with the tramp’s endless waiting a metaphor for life. Beckett didn’t like to equate the figure who never arrives with a deity. If you’re an atheist, perhaps you’ll find simply a metaphor for the futility of life.

Charlotte Gwinner’s production is presented on the thrust stage of Sheffield’s Crucible. That the play is normally presented in a proscenium arch, means the possibility of finding some new connection when staged in this space. It doesn’t come: the play doesn’t garner any greater connectivity with its audience through physical closeness. It seems the audience are always observers and never participants when it comes to Godot. The production does, however, retain the play’s inherent power. As the tramps, Lorcan Cranitch (Vladimir) and Jeff Rawle (Estragon) are brilliantly cast, although less a double act than the two are sometimes presented - whenever they hug, the embrace is perfunctory rather than warm. As Pozzo, Richard Cordery is magnetic, powerful and brilliant. There is always, in his performance, the suggestion of violence. It’s chilling.

It’s one of the great plays of the last century and this production, while not necessarily providing new insights, presents it powerfully.

To February 27.