|review| alias godot at tarragon theatre

The city is run amok with menacing youth and crooked cops. In Tarragon Theatre’s Alias Godot, Toronto playwright Brandon Gall puts forth that the infamous Godot has inadvertently wandered into a crime scene despite other plans. It looks like Estragon and Vladimir will have to wait while this debacle is sorted out.

Directed by Richard Rose, slapstick comedy parades throughout the performance. Inspired by Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Gall tries to make some sense out of Beckett’s absurdity by throwing his infamous emblem of existential crisis – Godot – into an interrogation room in post 9/11 New York City.

Godot is a prim, witty man that glows with an ephemeral light – quite literally; a vague follow spot pursues him almost throughout the play. He is a strange man, and doesn’t quite know where he is nor is he willing to speculate as to how he got there. Rebecca Picherack’s lighting design stresses the peculiarity of this strange meeting by leading the audience from day to night as the interrogation continues incessantly.

But the show’s charm is predominantly as an array of characters. Director Rose hams up the clowning and really Godot’s oddity isn’t outwardly distinguishable from the other misfits. The show opens as a police officer storms into the room. It’s been a rough night and his shoulder harness is handcuffed together – the key is attached to his back. He spins like a dog chasing his tail to try to reach it. A slight man in a dark suit stumbles into the room, trying to catch his falling hat before it hits the ground. Godot has arrived, and he is followed by a stern looking man poised with a snarl.

Alon Nashman plays Godot with an alien-like gleam. He is juxtaposed by Paul Braunstein as Edward and David Ferry as Vincent as a typical police duo – the former is meek, while the later is crude. It’s good cop, bad cop. Add Godot. Stir vigorously. Slightly over-the-top throughout, the piece is rich with the type of hilarious banter you’d expect if you locked a crude cop, his halfwit side kick and an embodiment of existential philosophy in a room together.

Godot’s presence is the biggest cult-generating factor this show invokes. A fun sort of game springs up: what would happen if we extract the essence of Godot and weave him into a New York police department’s interrogation room? For playwright Gall, Godot’s very presence becomes a sort of vortex in an otherwise concrete, physical reality. What the officers take for granted about themselves and each other – and about time and space altogether – slowly melts into a Dali-esque stew of surrealism.

For those of us who are decidedly reverent to the house of theatre history, this performance boils down to a sort of catch-the-Beckett-references as they fly by. A coat rack in the stead of Beckett’s leafless tree, the untimely entrance of a man and his servant, or a strategically placed phone call nearing the end of the second act, for example. Ultimately the very structure of this play progresses inch by inch in accordance with Beckett’s Waiting for Godot with only minor adjustments.

Gall writes the characters into a cramped interrogation room. On the back wall is a long mirror, assumedly backing onto a witness gallery. Are they being watched? Who knows. Set designer Teresa Przybylski exaggerates the cramped space by raking it from every angle, turning it into a sort of hand-drawn perspective box.

It isn’t until the second act that Gall really starts to light a fire with this piece. Godot, seemingly confined, easily undoes his handcuffs while an intoxicated Vincent slowly dozes off. When he suddenly wakes up, Godot casually re-fastens himself – totally unbeknownst to his captor. And just like Beckett’s Vladimir and Estragon, Godot in Alias Godot is characterized by choice. The infuriating but simple truth of the play becomes that each character ultimately has constructed their reality. The only confines are those imposed by their own perception.

The power of this piece wavers. As the situation begins to spin into an uncontrollable mess, director Rose’s impact really begins to come through: everything twists into eeriness – the lights change, the temperaments of the characters become manic. But, even in these moments the clowning prevails, and as the actors reach moments of sharp impact laughter seemed to fall out of the audience.

A notion about policing vaguely surfaces. In this stuffy, warn interrogation room, two police officers have detained Godot though he insists on leaving. Where Beckett proposes a basic need for camaraderie (though seemingly pointless), Gall interjects a questioning of those who have been put in charge of overseeing morality. There’s a powerful moment when Vincent stands upstage of Godot as he cowers against a wall. Godot’s shadow is a tiny speck compared to the giant, postured Vincent. Justice becomes a monster that can consume choice simply through its existence.

Ultimately I wonder if I’m digging too far. The challenge of modeling yourself after a great work like Waiting for Godot is that you’re inevitably bound to live in its shadow. Though this performance presents many pockets of light – well executed comedy, delicately constructed characters, philosophical musings, and a compelling set design – as a whole it just doesn’t shine. With one foot stuck in Beckett’s world, and the other undecidedly wavering between clowning and Law and Order, it just doesn’t quite have a solid base to stand on.

Alias Godot
Tarragon Theatre
30 Bridgman Ave
April 22 – June 1
Tickets $20-$38 (Sunday matinée PWYC)