SOLIDQUALITY

It has been two weeks since I saw Waiting for Godot with what I would have to say is a supremo cast. Nathan Lane, Bill Irwin, John Goodman and Jon Glover. They are all the type of actor that really flourishes in dialog that out of context would seem mundane, but strung through their bodies an acting performance comes out unmatched. It really is a physical play. And again, these are all very physical actors.

I first saw the play in college and frankly all I could remember was that it was a real college type play. bare set, abstract ideas, vague references to a Christian god. Totally college. But that was of that time in my life and it was too easy for me to write it off then.  But I guess that is one of the points of the play. Life. The time we spend each day and what we do with it. Are we in control of how we spend it? Do we understand why we spend it the way we do? Could this repeating day with slight variations and the enduring desire for ways to make it go faster allude to that day job while we wait for the other to pay us a visit?

Oddly enough the play I think is becoming more relevant in these modern times. One could almost see the whole play as a commentary about a TV culture. Always waiting for the next program. Never ending or meaning schedules kept daily by folks not exactly knowing why they are watching, but just knowing they need to.

Ultimately that is what makes this a successful work of art. It allows so much interpretation and application that it doesn’t try to define things for us, but rather forces us to question how we currently define things for ourselves. When we are revealed the shabby construction of our society only then could we spot those areas in most need of repair.