By Lucy Komisar
Jamie Lloyd’s vision of Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot,” is set in the opening of a huge round tunnel where the protagonists Estragon/Gogo (Keanu Reeves) and Vladimir/Didi (Alex Winer) hang out, sometimes climbing up and sliding down the circular walls. The set is by Soutra Gilmour. Usually, one begins by talking about the text of the play and the acting. In this case, the set overwhelms all.
In the traditional staging, there is a rural place with a tree. A man is hunched over as he pulls a cart. He represents the masses of oppressed abused workers. The man, ironically called Lucky (Michael Patrick Thornton,), is ordered about by Pozzo (Brandon J. Dirden), a whip-wielding boss. Lucky has a curiously professorial attitude. Pozzo, in dark glasses, is black with the demeanor and voice of a southern preacher. Appropriate that Godot is pronounced with the accent on the first syllable, God.
The actors are all fine as directed. But that is the problem. In Lloyd’s version, Lucky doesn’t pull a cart, he is in a wheel chair, with a leather mask over his face that is supposed to represent a horse’s bridle. It destroys the connection between him as a cruel victim and Pozzo as his abuser.
Pozzo seem like a bearded mafioso, a thug. Didi says it’s a scandal to treat a man like that. Pozzo calls Lucky “pig” and “hog” and says I am bringing him to the fair where I hope to get a good price. Does the black and white casting emphasize that this is a commentary on slavery, reversed? Looking for meaning.
Didi and Gogo live in a fantasyland.
Didi: “Tomorrow everything will be better, Godot will come tomorrow. You must be happy if you only knew it.”
Gogo: “What do we do now that we are happy. And at least there’s death. That’s such less misery.”
Didi: “Where are all these corpses from? A charnal house.”
Gogo: “We should turn towards nature.”
Didi: “We embraced. We were happy. Look at tree covered with leaves in night.”
Gogo: “We found something. To show we exist.”
Except there is no tree!!
Lloyd has Gogo and Didi race up the walls of the big tunnel as in a vaudeville and slide back onto the floor of it so they are prone.
“What are we doing here. We are waiting for Godot.”
But what they got was Pozzo and Lucky. Beckett’s answer is the cruelty and misery that awaits hope. But Lloyd and Gilmour have spoiled this by doing away with the violation of a nature that represented hope and happiness.
“Waiting for Godot.” Written by Samuel Beckett, directed by Jamie Lloyd. Hudson Theatre, 141 West 44th St., NYC. Runtime 2hrs5min. Opened Sep 28, 2025, Closes Jan 04, 2026. On NYTheatreWire.