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| Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves in Waiting for Godot (Andy Henderson) |
Bill and Ted are having an existential crisis, and people are paying more than $200 to witness it. I'm talking about the current Broadway production of Waiting for Godot, now running at the Hudson Theatre, with Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter headlining Samuel Beckett's iconic absurdist drama. Fans of the three films, beginning with 1989's Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, in which the duo team up as slacker friends, may enjoy seeing the actors collaborate on what is certainly their most bizarre adventure yet, but this production, from en vogue auteur Jamie Lloyd, would have benefited from a lighter touch.
Reeves and Winter are certainly risk takers. Playing, respectively, Estragon and Vladimir (aka Gogo an Didi), they're onstage for two hours in a work where not much happens as their characters wait for the mysterious Godot to show up (spoiler alert: he doesn't). The ease with Reeves and Winter play off of each other as their characters wait and wonder elevates much of the first act, until the arrival of Pozzo (Brandon J. Dirden) and Lucky (Michael Patrick Thornton). The interlude featuring this master-slave pair (Lucky usually has a rope around his neck, but here, like the actor, is in a wheelchair) is generally a dynamic part of the play, culminating with the mostly silent Lucky delivering a lengthy, fast-paced monologue of mostly gibberish. Having Thornton deliver it at a slower pace lessens its impact, and his performance seems at odds with Dirden's boisterous, showy one.
Likewise, in Act II, Reeves' and Winter's performances turn overly heavy and dour. There's little range, and the playfulness that was so effective in the first act disappears entirely. Even when Didi and Gogo are in their darkest moments, the absurdity of their situation (aka life) should always be present.
Instead, there's plenty of absurdity in Soutra Gilmour's set, which places the actors in a tunnel (or maybe the gun barrel in the opening shots of a James Bond film). It suggests they're trapped, perhaps in their own minds. The most moving performance may come from the young boy (played alternately by Eric Williams and Zaynn Arora) who shows up twice to inform them that Godot's arrival isn't imminent. A tiny figure dressed from head to toe in white, he could be one of God angels, and he's the warmest, most welcoming thing Didi and Gogo are likely to find in their barren world.
