Ze play is ze - how you say? - Is ze thing, yes?: A Review of OSTA's production of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot."

Okay, so those of you who are not familiar with Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot," are probably going to be confused by this post. So I recommend that you either see a production/recording of the play before reading this, or (if you're the type of person who doesn't mind spoilers) read this description of the play, just to get some background info. Or read the play itself, if you're feeling ambitious. (NOTE: THIS POST CONTAINS INFORMATION ABOUT A SHOW THAT CONTAINS ADULT THEMES, NUDITY, VIOLENCE, AND LATEX. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED)

Go ahead. I'll wait.... Done? Okay now that we're all caught up, let's talk about the production of "Waiting for Godot" that I saw this weekend.

Before seeing this play, the buzz I had heard about it had me extremely confused and I had no idea what to expect. I kept hearing people refer to it as "Gaydot" and descriptions of the show usually unvolved phrases like drag queen, lesbians, naked people, and sex-slave. And my reaction was something along the lines of "Ummm....what? We're talking about the same play, right?" At the time, the way that people had described this production to me made me set my expectations pretty low, because it led me to believe that the show was being completely "gayed up" solely for the purpose of....well, making it gayer. I mean, beforehand I had been aware that there are some vague homoerotic themes in the script that are sometimes addressed very subtly in some productions, but saying that they were of central importance in the play would probably be a stretch. So, I went into the play readily equipped with a gigantic sack full of salt grains with which to take this interpretation.

However, upon seeing the play itself and reading the program notes by the director (coincidentally also the teacher of my "Gender and Sexuality in Disney Films" class), I felt quite differently. Allow me to briefly paint you a mental portrait of the characters: Vladimir and Estragon are portrayed as a bickering lesbian/trans couple, dressed in somewhat ill-fitting brown suits, and accessorized with black bowler hats (Estragon with a pair of dark rubber boots while Vladimir goes shoeless); Pozzo is depicted as an flashy, short tempered uber-diva in drag (shimmery turquoise ballgown, small leopard-print pill box hat with a black veil, fabulously colorful eye make-up. That's right, I said drag.); Pozzo's servant, Lucky is portrayed as a sex slave, with a long leash around his neck and dressed leather pants, with several chains hanging off of his body. (Tobias Funke's unfortunately accidental "leather-daddy" ensemble comes to mind....) Finally, remember the tree? The only specified set piece in the script? The tree is made up of five people, wearing flesh-colored underwear and covered in body paint symbols, standing in a very close huddle, performing what appeared to be a form of contact improvisation.

This certainly made for a very interesting theater experience. Those of you who have seen a production of this play know that ANY production of it is certainly a very interesting experience, but this was SO far beyond that. Instead of the typical silent, colorless environment created for most productions, in this one, lighting and music were used many times throughout the play to heighten the mood of each interaction. There were two moments in which I found this to be particularly effective:
•The first of these, was Pozzo and Lucky's first entrance: In the middle of a conversation between Vladimir and Estragon, all of a sudden, the stage lights went out and the room was filled with the multicolored disco-style spotlights one would see at a drag show, and the intro to the Scissor Sisters' Laura began to blast throughout the room as Lucky (followed at leash-length by Pozzo) proceeded to strut across the performance space. Most epic entrance ever? I think so.
•The second amazing moment with incredibly powerful use of lighting and sound was Lucky's famous monologue in the first act (full text of which can be found here). During this speech, the lights remained black and white, but flashed on and off, with spotlights running over the entire stage. As Lucky spoke, running all over the space, there was noise underneath him, created both the moans of pain and chaos coming from the other three characters, who eventually tackled him to the ground and subdued him into silence. Definitely one of the most powerful moments in the play for me.

However, you may still be wondering what the exact point was of all of these interpretational decisions (especially considering the fact that Samuel Beckett plays are NEVER done professionally in this manner, thanks to the uptight members of the Beckett Estate who forbid interpretations other than the one envisioned by the playwright). Well, the director's primary aim with this play was to use the conflicts and themes already present in the script as a vehicle for portraying social issues for the queer community. This direct quote from his program notes explains his interpretation pretty clearly:

"I have used the existential crises that occur naturally within the play to be acted out by stereotypes in the queer community. With this production, I have attempted to "hold the mirror up" to heteronormative society in order to show them the cookie cutter shapes they have placed on us: a squabbling lesbian/trans/genderfucked couple, a trashy fabulous drag queen, and BDSM slave, even reducing the world where we live into naked bodies."

Now, the director also admits in his program notes that he was intentionally "queering" the play, meaning that he was "deliberately reading LGBTQ (QIAPPLSWXYZ) issues onto a play that does not have them explicitly stated in order to reclaim in for myself and for the queer community." However, in my opinion, after having seen the ways in which he analyzed the script and the impact it had on the production as a whole, I do not think (as some others do) that this belittles the production or interpretation in any way. I do not believe that elaborating upon themes that are not explicitly spelled out in the script makes them any less real or any less meaningful. It is true that, with any directorial project, one has to take into account the question of "Is what I am doing really serving the play?" which is why many people think that such outlandish interpretations are just gratuitous and absurd. However, I felt that this director's interpretation did serve the play, in the sense that it forced me, as an audience member, to think about the themes of the play more deeply and, subsequently, question what the play says about the human condition. Because, after all, isn't that the point of theater?

And a little sidenote to the members of the Beckett Estate and anyone else who thinks that radically different interpretations such as this are unacceptable in the theater: Pick. A. Different. Medium. If you honestly think that a script written by one person and interpreted by one person cannot possibly be interpreted in any other way, then theater is not for you. If every production of every play were an exact carbon copy of the original production, as interpreted by the playwright and ONLY the playwright, why would anyone bother going to the theater? People don't go to see revivals of old plays because they want to see a carbon copy. They want to see something new. They want to see what another person saw when they analyzed the script. They want to be presented with another way to think about the play. They may think it was a bad interpretation, or they may disagree with the director's concept, but at least they will come out of the theater thinking about it in a different way than they were before they went in.

All of the actors gave great performances that made me truly care about each and every character. One effect that the gender-bending and character re-interpretations had for me, as an audience member, was that every relationship seemed to have much higher stakes than those in the original production, and I became much more invested in what they said and how they interacted. In addition, I must give an entire bucket of props to the five most focused, physically impressive people on the stage: The "Treeple." They were onstage for three hours straight, standing in a huddle, moving very slowly as one cohesive living being, supporting each other's weight as they leaned on one another, using their arms to represent branches, without losing focus OR stealing attention from the action. #extremelyimpressedwithyourmadskillz. I was also very fascinated by the ways in which the tree actually reacted to the action going on with the other characters, making the tree much more than just a part of the scenery.

Overall, I thought this production was very powerful, and I enjoyed it a lot. I came out of the production with an entirely new view on the play, and a renewed appreciation for directors who can pull off controversial productions like this one without losing focus on the play and truly make their audience think more about the work. Because of these, I would say that the production was definitely success.