Estragon - Johnny Murphy
Pozzo - Aland Stanford
Lucky - Stephen Brennan
Boy - Barry O'Connell
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Directed by Walter D Asmus
Designed by Louis le Brocquy
At the Barbican Theatre during their Becket Centenary Festival.
Everyone needs to see this piece once in their lives and experience it in their own way. To my shame and surprise I have only seen excerpts and read passages. While being valid in their own right it was a great relief to sit through this marvellous production all the way through.
The beauty of Beckett is the humour crashing so violently into the poignancy of his piteous observation. Sets are traditionally sparse and this is no exception and yet the collaboration with the lighting designer (Rupert Murray) is a joy to behold without distracting from the performances. All the cast were delightful and in some way mesmerising.
I won't make a seperate entry for this but after seeing Godot I wandered down to The Pit (Barbican) to enjoy a selection of readings from Beckett's prose and poetry. The readers were Alan Stanford (who also directed and quite clearly lives and breathes Beckett from the soul), Charles Dance (who I don't usually enjoy but he did present a couple of pieces quite well) and the ever satisfying Penelope Wilton.
A fantastic evening
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