Still waiting for Godot

It’s been 73 years since the first performance of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Vladimir and Estragon are still waiting.  The play though has become an established  icon of experimental 20th century theatre and millions of words have been written about it.  It’s currently running at Coal Mine Theatre in a production directed by Kelli Fox.  As far as I remember (and it’s been fifty years since I read the play) this production plays it straight and pretty much entirely according to the stage directions in the script.  The set is a tree and a bunch of dirt.  Nobody sits in a dust bin.  So everything turns on subtlety and timing which is quite a challenge.

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Topdog/Underdog

Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks, which is currently running at Canadian Stage’s Berkeley Street Theatre has garnered impressive accolades since its 2001 New York debut.  It’s won a Pulitzer and been named, in 2018, as “the greatest American play of the last 25 years” by the New York Times.  It’s well written, dramatically well crafted and often very funny but, to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t deeply engaged by it.

Mazin Elsadig and Sébastein Heins in TopdogUnderdog-photobyDahliaKatz-5695

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