![]() ![]() ![]() The subtlety of suggestion and the readable pauses are absent. He's attempting Beckett and failing trying a lighter, funnier, approach, which just doesn't work. But Hanson's comedy repeatedly misses the mark. The plain strangeness of that job and showbusiness in general is a nice fit for Beckett's wry, oddball wit. There are a few things - the loneliness, the paranoia, how you never know quite what's round the corner - which ring true in both the original and this new play. Paralleling the work of an understudy with the surreal, existential situation Beckett creates in Waiting for Godot is a nice idea. At one point Simon Day's veteran actor Ester tries to teach the young Val (James Marlowe) a thing or two about acting, at another point they decide to curse ("Macbeth!") the show. It's dead time time they while away by repeating the same stories to each other. They are cooped up in a tiny dressing room with only each other and some musty costumes for company. Waiting for something to happen – illness? accident? – they aren't too sure. Like Vladimir and Estragon, Ester and Val are waiting. You can probably guess the play they are understudying, and Hanson tries, clunkily, to channel it. Dave Hanson's comedy throws a bit of light on a dressing room that's home to two hapless, hopeless understudies, slowly beginning to unravel. With all that lonely backstage time, it must be, psychologically, pretty tough. They're expected to know their lines and blocking perfectly, regardless of the fact that it might be the first time they've done the part in weeks. The rare days they do get to go onstage, they barely get any notice before having to step up to tread the boards. Most of the time their job is to turn up, night after night, just in case. Understudies, like stage managers, are some of the most unsung heroes in the business. Overall an entertaining hour and a half, and there are moments towards the end when I felt quite sympathetically involved with both men. But for much of the time you are aware that he is a man who simply has not been fortunate in his profession and that this has more than a little to do with his abrasive personality. When he launches into a speech, be it from Godot or some other dramatic highlight you do feel sympathy for him. He does his best throughout to convince Val, but even more himself, that that he is an actor of huge potential, whereas only incredible ninnies actually have jobs and get paid. This is the case, however, for reasons that have made him a very unhappy man. Simon Day’s Ester dominates proceedings pretty much throughout. Val, played by James Marlowe, is quite young, and therefore is driven by optimism and a sense that, although the world he is fighting for a place in is highly competitive, it is also essentially fair, recognising and employing people like himself. The other is that both are awaiting their hoped for entry to the status of employed actors. One is that Beckett’s masterpiece is about two men awaiting the arrival of Godot, a mysterious character who never appears. The two men are waiting for Waiting for Godot in two senses. There are occasional interventions by Laura, the stage manager. They are present as stand-ins in case of emergency, and spend the entire performance in the dressing room, much of it in discussion that teeters constantly on the verge of tempestuous argument, with some sense that physical violence might break out at any moment.Īs you would expect, Val is idealistic about the craft of acting, while Ester has become deeply and self-protectively cynical about it. This is an American backstage comedy about two male actors, one, Ester, elderly, the other, Val, a beginner. The show’s director Mark Bell has in recent years directed The Comedy About A Bank Robbery and The Play That Goes Wrong, and his comic touch is stamped clearly on the show.Įntertaining, and the actors draw you in. The writer, Dave Hanson, an American playwright, gives a fresh and new take on Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot, finding an interesting parallel to the original tale in the world of theatre. ![]() The creative team behind the show also deserve a mention here. These moments are broken when the audience is reminded that Ester and Val are not the only living, breathing bodies backstage at the theatre with the entrance of Assistant Stage Manager Laura, played by Laura Kirman, whose character brings a fresh contrast to the bumbling understudies. The play for the most part feels like a two hander with Simon Day’s Ester and James Marlowe’s Val dominating the stage with moments of quick overlapping dialogue, lingering silences and beautiful comedic sequences that demand a certain level of physicality from the actors. ![]()
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