Waiting for Godot review: Astonishing how often Beckett’s masterpiece is revived | Theatre | Entertainment

Once described as a play in which “nothing happens, twice”, it is astonishing how often Samuel Beckett’s masterpiece is revived for subsequent generations to puzzle over its elusive meaning. Not so much a tragicomedy as a comedie pathetique it is theatrically stripped to the bone – a kind of reverse engineered drama.

Two tramps wait by a dead tree in an arid landscape for the eponymous Godot, who may provide them with the means to ‘go on’. Often described as a parable about the hopelessness of living, it contains allusions that include post-apocalyptic devastation and silent comedies.

Estragon (Lucian Msamati) is grouchy and grounded, complaining about too-tight boots and hunger; Vladimir (Ben Whishaw) is more ethereal, a dreamer who has vestigial traces of idealism. When their banal banter is interrupted by the arrival of the domineering Pozzo (Jonathan Slinger) and his slave-on-a-rope Lucky (Tom Edden), their plight is more keenly defined.

Director James MacDonald adheres to Beckett’s strict staging instructions while allowing his actors to invest wisely in their characters. Whishaw is awesomely good as Vladimir, often staring at the sky like a martyred saint, while Msamati is equally fine, hogging the one seat – a carved boulder – and grumbling about being beaten up by unseen strangers. Slinger brings a rare depth to Pozzo and we see glimpses of the wounded man beneath the bully.

Biblical references hover around the Calgary-like tree yet the interdependency of the two central characters never waivers. For all its bleakness, there is a humanity that binds them together as they wait, paralysed by the hope that Godot will arrive to validate their existence.