Firewatch. They sit and wait.
Waiting… they’d sing of it, if weariness did not keep them silent. The red light is heavy. It falls like dust over their feet. It crawls up to the knee, illuminates folded hands. It is flightless. Their faces are in the dark. And yet, for some time now, the eyes of the small Frenchman have been illuminated. He has kissed a tiny rose, and returned it to his breast, where it now wilts. The man from Langenau has seen the rose because he cannot fall asleep. He thinks: I have no rose, none.
This, raises his voice. And he sings a dirge that the women at home sing in the fields, in fall, once the harvest is complete.
************************************************
The little Marquis says: “You seem very young, sir?”
And the man from Langenau, half in sorrow, half in defiance: “Eighteen.” Then silence.
Later, the Frenchman asks: “Do you have a bride at home, Mr. Donzel?”
“You?” comes the response from the man from Langenau.
“She is blond like you.”
And silence falls, until the German bursts: “Why the devil? Why do you sit there in your saddle and ride through this irritable land to fight Turkish, then?”
The Marquis laughs. “To return.”
And the man from Langenau becomes solem. He thinks of the blond girls with whom he used to play. Wild play. He would like to return to his house, for only the blink of an eye, only for that long, but instead only the words: “Magdalena - that I may be forgiven!”
How - ? thinks the young man. - Once again, they are unfathomable.
**************************************************
One day, in the morning, there is a rider, and then two, three, ten. All in ice, huge. Then a thousand behind them. The army.
Everyone must separate.
“Good luck, Marquis.--”
“May the Maria protect you, Mr. Donzel.”
They may never hear of one another again. And once they were friends; brothers. When once, they had one another to confide in, now they find that they cannot tell one man from another. They hesitate, falter. The haste and hoof beats resound around them. The Marquis pulls off his heavy right-hand glove. He takes out the little rose, holds a petal to the man from Langenau, like a man might break off and offer a host.
“That this may shelter you. Take care--”
The man from Langenau is astonished. He looks at the Frenchman for what seems forever. Then he slides the foreign petal under his tunic. And it swells from the billows of his heart. Horn call. He rides with the army, the donzel. He laughs sadly to himself: an unknown woman protects me.
Friday, December 08, 2006
Monday, December 04, 2006
Waiting For Godot
Originally for The Believer Magazine:
Waiting For Godot
performed by The Gate Theatre Dublin
presented by CalPerformances
at the Roda Theater, Berkeley, CA
on November 2, 2006
VALDIMIR: Moron!
ESTRAGON: Vermin!
VALDIMIR: Abortion
ESTRAGON: Morpion!
VALDIMIR: Sewer-rat!
ESTRAGON: Curate!
VALDIMIR: (with finality). Critic!
Waiting For Godot, the play by Samuel Beckett, defies criticism. During its performance, the sparse stage and almost superfluous language provoke one of two responses from the audience: either Beckett is God, or that Beckett is Bum. With a director hand-selected by Beckett himself in 1988, one year before his death, and the original cast from that year’s premier performance still together, The Gate Theatre Dublin’s performance left me with the former opinion, and the laughter that filtered through Berkeley’s Roda Theater confirmed that I was not the only one. But aside from its humor, Waiting For Godot’s ability to question its own existence is perhaps its greatest feat.
Throughout the play, the two tramps Vladimir (Barry McGovern) and Estragon (Johnny Murphy) repeatedly state their worst and, more importantly, our worst fears: nothing has happened and nothing will happen. When the lights rise we find a rock, a tree, and Estragon tugging hopelessly on one of his boots. Murphy’s bearded and time worn face has a zombie-like expression, his eyes peer out as though he is not there at all, and he states blankly: Nothing to be done. The two bums will not escape this phrase. They can only sit and wait for Godot, a man they have never met and whom they know nothing about. Director Walter D. Asmus does relieve the despair by focusing on the play’s powerful wit rather than allowing the full weight of existentialist despair to sink in. However, McGovern’s and Murphy’s intimacy on stage suggests they know each other better than anyone should and have already said all that they can think of to each other. Like old travel buddies they bicker ceaselessly and always make up; but their discourse, like their journey, never gets anywhere. Each response seems to degenerate from the former statement ad infinitum.
So how is it that Beckett’s work continues to astound and entertain audiences around the globe? Is there a point? So little actually happens that the play defies the critic’s desire to take a standpoint from which to argue for or against. One of the most widely agreed upon of these shibboleth’s is of course that “Godot”, pronounced God-oh, is the lord almighty. However, Beckett himself never confirmed this. Even when Vladimir and Estragon are joined by Lucky (Stephen Brennan) and Pozzo (Alan Stanford) the action never advances and nothing is achieved. Pozzo, the most hopeful and boisterous of the quartet, ultimately fails at entertaining the two companions and raises his hands in surrender. Nothing to be done.
In the final scene of the play Vladimir speaks with a boy (Barry O’Connell) who has come to tell him that Mr. Godot will not be coming today, but that surely he will come tomorrow. Vladimir seems resigned to the fact that Godot may very well never arrive, and that this is his fate, but he still ritualistically asks the boy a slew of questions. The ritual continues unabated until the boy asks what he should tell Mr. Godot. Vladimir pauses, then stutters, “Tell him… tell him that you saw me and that… that you saw me.” And that, perhaps, is all that a playwright may ask of his audience: that they see the performance and bear witness to its existence. Waiting For Godot may be meaningless, but it does exist - of that much we can be mostly sure.
Waiting For Godot
performed by The Gate Theatre Dublin
presented by CalPerformances
at the Roda Theater, Berkeley, CA
on November 2, 2006
VALDIMIR: Moron!
ESTRAGON: Vermin!
VALDIMIR: Abortion
ESTRAGON: Morpion!
VALDIMIR: Sewer-rat!
ESTRAGON: Curate!
VALDIMIR: (with finality). Critic!
Waiting For Godot, the play by Samuel Beckett, defies criticism. During its performance, the sparse stage and almost superfluous language provoke one of two responses from the audience: either Beckett is God, or that Beckett is Bum. With a director hand-selected by Beckett himself in 1988, one year before his death, and the original cast from that year’s premier performance still together, The Gate Theatre Dublin’s performance left me with the former opinion, and the laughter that filtered through Berkeley’s Roda Theater confirmed that I was not the only one. But aside from its humor, Waiting For Godot’s ability to question its own existence is perhaps its greatest feat.
Throughout the play, the two tramps Vladimir (Barry McGovern) and Estragon (Johnny Murphy) repeatedly state their worst and, more importantly, our worst fears: nothing has happened and nothing will happen. When the lights rise we find a rock, a tree, and Estragon tugging hopelessly on one of his boots. Murphy’s bearded and time worn face has a zombie-like expression, his eyes peer out as though he is not there at all, and he states blankly: Nothing to be done. The two bums will not escape this phrase. They can only sit and wait for Godot, a man they have never met and whom they know nothing about. Director Walter D. Asmus does relieve the despair by focusing on the play’s powerful wit rather than allowing the full weight of existentialist despair to sink in. However, McGovern’s and Murphy’s intimacy on stage suggests they know each other better than anyone should and have already said all that they can think of to each other. Like old travel buddies they bicker ceaselessly and always make up; but their discourse, like their journey, never gets anywhere. Each response seems to degenerate from the former statement ad infinitum.
So how is it that Beckett’s work continues to astound and entertain audiences around the globe? Is there a point? So little actually happens that the play defies the critic’s desire to take a standpoint from which to argue for or against. One of the most widely agreed upon of these shibboleth’s is of course that “Godot”, pronounced God-oh, is the lord almighty. However, Beckett himself never confirmed this. Even when Vladimir and Estragon are joined by Lucky (Stephen Brennan) and Pozzo (Alan Stanford) the action never advances and nothing is achieved. Pozzo, the most hopeful and boisterous of the quartet, ultimately fails at entertaining the two companions and raises his hands in surrender. Nothing to be done.
In the final scene of the play Vladimir speaks with a boy (Barry O’Connell) who has come to tell him that Mr. Godot will not be coming today, but that surely he will come tomorrow. Vladimir seems resigned to the fact that Godot may very well never arrive, and that this is his fate, but he still ritualistically asks the boy a slew of questions. The ritual continues unabated until the boy asks what he should tell Mr. Godot. Vladimir pauses, then stutters, “Tell him… tell him that you saw me and that… that you saw me.” And that, perhaps, is all that a playwright may ask of his audience: that they see the performance and bear witness to its existence. Waiting For Godot may be meaningless, but it does exist - of that much we can be mostly sure.
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