The quixotic nature of faith; the slipperiness of life’s purpose; the terror of time’s progress, balanced against the uncanniness of eternal return; the consolation and alienation cradled together in every human interaction: few theatrical texts encompass the modern human condition as completely as Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.” In it, a pair of hapless vagabonds wait endlessly for the elusive titular figure, and its irresolvable enigmas only heighten its resonance. Since its 1953 premiere — and across thousands of productions — the play (along with the famously litigious Beckett estate) has demanded that those who stage it resist interpretation and adhere strictly to its precise instructions and spartan aesthetic. As Kelli Fox, director of the stirring new production at Coal Mine Theatre, states in her program notes, “one feels compelled (…) to just get out of (Beckett’s) way.”
Which is not to suggest that some passive reenactment is called for. What’s best about Coal Mine’s Godot is how fully its cast embodies the play’s complex emotional terrain. As Vladimir, the more chipper of the two tramps, Alexander Thomas — who won a Dora for his performance in Coal Mine’s “Between Riverside and Crazy” under Fox’s direction — elicits boundless sympathy without ingratiating himself. Ever staving off resignation, the glinting eyes and half-smile Thomas maintains while speaking of desperate feelings generate simultaneous laughter and heartache. So much seems to be going on inside as he merely observes others, his hands often suspended, however shakily, in a position of readiness. Ready for what? We can’t be sure. He’s waiting for Godot.
Likewise, as the ornery Estragon, Coal Mine’s “Chief Engineer” Ted Dykstra exudes angst and irritation thwarted by fatigue and, on occasion, something akin to wonder. There is a palpable charge every time the whites of Dykstra’s eyes bulge below the brim of his bowler. While Vladimir complains of inflamed kidneys, Estragon’s chief ailment is his aching foot — one of many ways in which the latter externalizes the grievances the former is less compelled to display. When these two embrace, just as when they debate the merits of suicide — hilariously — they encapsulate a profoundly relatable codependency.
This theme is explored more harshly with the arrival of Pozzo (Jim Mezzon) and Lucky (Simon Bracken), Pozzo’s apparent slave. One of the most poignant elements in Beckett’s story, their relationship blurs oppressor and oppressed, companionship and entrapment. Mezzon’s Pozzo is appropriately overbearing in his booming commands and declarations, while Bracken is captivating in his protracted silence — his slack jaw and thousand-mile stare projecting a fathomless inner life, perhaps developed in defence against years spent in servitude, until the moment when he is ordered to dance as though “entangled in a net,” and subsequently unleashes a torrent of verbiage rife with both pathos and menace. Lastly, as Godot’s child messenger, young Kole Parks brings a touching innocence to the play’s most exquisitely eerie moments.
Fox’s direction is commendable for its discretion. Her nurturing of performances seems both rigorous and playful, evidenced in diverting variations of cadence and physicality in the scenes where four actors inhabit the stage at once. There is, arguably, some extraneous movement throughout — vague gestures or shuffling that suggest a given actor’s knee-jerk naturalism — which can occasionally dissipate tension.
More problematic is Scott Penner’s set design. Beckett’s scene-setting is limited to “A country road. A tree.” But here we’re given three walls, painted to resemble an overcast sky and angled, nonsensically, to create a forced perspective. Rather than expanding the landscape, these walls diminish the desired atmosphere of desolation, making the already small playing space more cramped. But here’s a shout out to Ming Wong’s costumes, whose every sweat stain, perforation, and patch of dust contributes to a feeling of longtime wear and tear, use and abuse. Vladimir begins the play with his fly buffoonishly unfastened and, while his shirt is buttoned to the neck, his necktie is loose as a noose — an image echoed in the rope tied around Lucky’s neck, or in the makeshift belt that Vladimir and Estragon will later consider converting into a means of auto-asphyxiation.
It had been years since I’d seen “Godot” on stage, and my gratitude to Coal Mine’s production, whatever qualms I have, is immense. In part because of the intelligence, creativity, and heart invested in the performances, but also because when you merely read Beckett’s text, you forget that its richest meanings can be felt only in its realization. These characters may be trapped in their shared solitudes and on this barren landscape, but during those hours spent enacting their circuitous dramas, the fourth wall evaporates. They are being seen. They need to be seen — by God, by Godot, by us. “At me too someone is looking,” Vladimir says, “of me too someone is saying, He is sleeping, he knows nothing, let him sleep.” He is not alone.
