L' Absurdite, C'est Moi

THE MOON over the Mather House courtyard would delight Samuel Beckett as it dodges behind thick black clouds during this outdoor production of his existentialist tour-de-force, Waiting For Godot. By play's end, it nestles out of sight, casting an appropriate bleakness over a wet and shivering audience. The sky matches Beckett's play in its inability to illumine. The stage slipped between Mather House's cement blocks stands bare of even the smallest of miracles. No leaves flutter on the lone tree that cowers behind a tiny desert. A flute echoes as the only sign of regeneration when the moon disappears.

The playwright would be entertained less by Jenny Cornuelle's ambitious production of his bestknown work, which lacks meaning and plot, though the staging has its merits. Cornuelle's ingenuity shines through her apocalyptic set, an outdoor sandcastle lit by torches. It's clearly not the kind of sandcastle on which uplifting dreams are built. Since only futility wafts through Beckett's dreams and illusions, this purgatorial anti-Eden perfectly suits Vladimir and Estragon, the two main characters, who wander helplessly in search of the mysterious Godot.

Though Cornuelle and her cast understand the desolation that underlies Beckett's play, they shun many of the more light-hearted elements of this tragicomedy. Beckett's world consists of both circus clowns and downtrodden poets. The director doesn't give her performers enough guidance in the "baggy pants" aspect of Godot, leaving them to contemplate somberly the meaninglessness of their lives.

Paul Redford as Vladimir and Brian McCue as Estragon cannot be faulted for following these instructions; just quite the opposite, both strain to play up the many truly funny lines. But for the most part, their Odd Couple is more Camus and Sartre than Laurel and Hardy, blankly meditating on life's emptiness. Both are skilled actors, with exceptional diction, and their interplay is the highlight of this production. Their comprehension of the interchangeable nature of their roles seeps through each line: Vladimir speaks in verse, though Estragon is the poet. McCue and Redford mimic so subtlely that only during the second act do we notice that they mirror each other's ideas and movements. Like silent film stars, they remove their bowlers in unison to scratch their heads.

McCue and Redford are not the only characters to don headgear. But neither Jeff Horwitz as Pozzo, a representative of the society that Beckett challenges, nor Lisa Claudy, as Pozzo's servant Lucky who responds to his master's every call, can remove their hats with the same aplomb. They lack Redford and McCue's dramatic dexterity. Horwitz seems content to outshout the rest of the actors, sounding more vaudevilian than dramatic. Claudy is not up to Beckett's extremely demanding monologue that satirizes Joyce, and sounds uncomfortable with the speed with which she must utter Lucky's stream of consciousness gibberish, though her diction makes the passage tolerable.

Horwitz appears to be waiting for the big deal of the day behind Door Number Two, not Godot; his interpretation of Pozzo is out of line with the rest of the characters. Somehow, he's convinced that his world is not reduced to nothingness. But Beckett would have Pozzo contemplate sex, war and food--human experience--like an unfulfilled poet searching impotently for the right word to end a stanza. Horwitz's Pozzo is too animated in a lifeless and desolate wilderness, where the only legitimate spirit takes the form of Godot's messenger, a young boy played ably by Bonnie Zimmering, who doubles impressively as the dancer of a tree in the first act.

BUT who can blame Horwitz for a misinterpretation, or Cornuelle for a partially satisfying production when the nature of Beckett's play is so ambiguous? Everything and nothing makes sense. His characters are not only waiting for Godot, they are waiting for waiting, preoccupied with the lack of activity. Estragon cries out in an exasperated voice: "I don't know why I don't know!" and the hollowness of his confession typifies the void the playwright strives to create.

Waiting For Godot is nearly impossible to pull off because it is difficult to satisfy an audience that inevitably realizes the point of the play is that there is no point. This production aspires mightily, but the nature of the material remains overwhelming. The actors cannot maintain the mesmeric quality required for the drone of meaninglessness that continues throughout the evening. After the third or fourth "nothing to be done," or "we're waiting for Godot," we feel an incredible urge to escape. But Beckett won't let us get away that easily. Godot is three hours of mental torment; characters lisp absurdities while we squirm in our chairs, bothered as much by the play as much as by this production .

Go. Don't go. It doesn't really matter.