May 1, 2009

'Waiting for Godot' musters great Broadway reviews

This is the Godot you’ve been waiting for, the critics declare today, as they rave about Nathan Lane and Bill Irwin in the Samuel Beckett classic.

The Roundabout Theater Company’s revival of “Waiting for Godot” gets high praise all around, as do the performances by John Goodman and John Glover and the direction of Anthony Page.

“Waiting for Godot” plays through July 5 at Studio 54, 254 W. 54th St., map. Regular tickets are priced from $36.50 to $116.50….

Every Tuesday, there are pre-show Theatre Talks discussions, free for all ticket holders.

The “Waiting for Godot” reviews:

Newsday - “This is bliss - seriously - theatrical and existential bliss. Anthony Page has directed four mesmerizing actors - and also reined in four idiosyncratic personalities - for a peak event that honors Samuel Beckett’s 1953 masterwork by living fully and hilariously in the hope and futile inertia of his great mortal joke.”

Daily News - “Lane gives his best and most surprising performance in years; he’s funny and moving and free of shticky old tricks. Irwin brings a shattered elegance and deep humanity as his straight-man sidekick”

Wall Street Journal - “‘Waiting for Godot,’ Samuel Beckett’s dark parable of two bowler-hatted tramps who await a long-deferred rendezvous with a man who may or may not be God, is one of those works of art that is not diminished but enhanced by familiarity. The more you see it, the better it looks, though I doubt that it’s ever looked much better than it does on Broadway right now.”

Post - “The most potent aspect of “Godot,” after all, is that you can project almost any meaning onto it. Right now, there couldn’t be a more provocative text for a culture such as ours, built on a need for instant gratification, a pathological fear of boredom and the seeming inability to learn from the past. It’s all funny, yes, until someone gets hurt.”

Variety - ” But there’s no trace of that monotony in the perversely gripping non-drama and fine-grained emotional textures of this haunting revival. Samuel Beckett’s 1953 play has been absent from Broadway for more than 50 years, and the current climate of pervasive anxiety makes the timing ideal for a comedy of existential despair — even better when it comes wrapped in Anthony Page’s transcendent production, showcasing four distinctive actors at the top of their game.”

Associated Press - “Both are superb: Goodman, often roaring his lines with hurricane force; Glover, silent except for a long gibberish speech near the end of Act 1.”

New York Times - “But in 2009, Anthony Page’s smart, engaging production for the Roundabout Theater Company makes it clear that this greatest of 20th-century plays is also entertainment of a high order. It seems fitting that “Godot” — which also stars Nathan Lane, John Glover and John Goodman — returns to Broadway in an interpretation that emphasizes the irresistible rhythms achieved by Beckett’s radical literary surgery, that of cutting basic theatrical diversions off at the knees.”

Hollywood Reporter - “Veteran theatergoers usually don’t have to wait long for another production of the oft-performed “Godot.” But one as special as this doesn’t come along that often.”

Bloomberg - “All of us wonder about Godot’s identity. The readiest assumption is God, which, however, Beckett steadily denied. By accentuating the first syllable of Godot — GOD-oh — rather than the customary second — go-DOE — this production may defy the author.”

USA Today - “But like the current revival of Eugene Ionesco’s Exit the King, this Godot is noteworthy less for its cast members’ marquee value than their ability to make the existential, universal questions posed by the text accessible to a mass audience.”

amNewYork - “We can’t promise that you will understand “Waiting for Godot.” But so far as Beckett revivals go, this “Godot” really reaches the top of the class.”

May 1, 2009 9:49 AM in Broadway, Midtown

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