History: Reviews
Waiting for Godot
John Beer, Time Out
May 4, 2006
Like Vladimir, Estragon and their bohemian creator, Beau and Colm O'Reilly have long understood the freedom and associated perils of working at the margins. Some of the force of this outstanding new production of Beckett's masterpiece accrues from the sense that it represents a summation of Chicago avant-garde practice. Curious Theatre Branch, as frequently beleaguered as any absurdist hero, can't go on, yet it goes on.
The father-and-son O'Reillys and the rest of the razor-sharp cast demonstrate their reverence for Beckett in the best possible way: by creating a crisp, vibrantly contemporary vision of the play. The key, paradoxically, is a rigorous submission to the dictates of Beckett's text. Eschewing any attempts to render this world of broken, damaged images more easily digestible, Colm O'Reilly's Didi and Beau O'Reilly's Gogo present themselves as stoic and fiercely impassive as Beckett's beloved Buster Keaton. Fixing melancholy stares into the near distance, their faces offer sad landscapes, haunting the imagination like the set's single tree. Ward's Pozzo captures the character's brutal impotence, while Jeffrey Bivens as Lucky handles the infamous monologue masterfully. His three minutes of babble form a miniature tutorial on twentieth-century theater.
Waiting for Godot
Fabrizio O. Almeida, Newcity
May 2006
They're not waiting for the war to end, or for a new immigration bill to pass or for prices at the gas pumps to go down. Those famous tramps are just waiting for Godot. Devoid of political overtones and admirably resisting the imposition of any specific interpretation or "meaning," Curious Theatre Branch's straightforward yet rewarding staging of the existential classic achieves something truly remarkable: it makes you feel like you might be encountering Samuel Beckett's seminal drama for the very first time. Indeed, with its minimalist design (a clean black box with simple scenery), "presentational" quality (a curtain straight out of vaudeville literally "opens" and "closes" each act) and poignant lead performances, director Stefan Brün's production is neither too comic nor too tragic, and intellectually content to remain ambiguously open-ended. In terms of tone and theatricality, it's a respectable addition to the innumerable worldwide stagings currently honoring the late playwright's birthday centenary and remains accessible enough to potentially convert a new generation of playgoers into Godotistas....
In the roles of Estragon and Vladimir, real-life father and son Beau and Colm O'Reilly, respectively, bring great commitment and compassion to their double-act, emphasizing a heartbreaking, hand-holding dependency while highlighting the physical and temperamental differences of their characters with gestural gusto and verbal nuance. The second and third generation members of the theatrical O'Reilly acting dynasty also add a touching dimension to the play's darker circularity by suggesting a shared history and familial bond that has helped their Gogo and Didi survive the tedious repetition, cruel waiting and emotional immobility of Beckett's barren wasteland.
Waiting for Godot
Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times
May 3, 2006
If you've never experienced Samuel Beckett's landscape-altering Waiting for Godot, the Curious Theatre Branch production—now being performed as part of the company's yearlong celebration of the 100th anniversary of Beckett's birth—would be a fine place to start. It is exceptionally clear, unfussy and well-acted.
Even if you've already seen the play countless times, this is a solid production to revisit. In director Stefan Brun's rendering, certain lines in this seminal work of 20th century drama pop into relief in a way that seems entirely fresh. Add to this the intimate "poor theater" quality of the Prop Thtr space where this Godot is being produced, and it all feels just right, with a brown cloth curtain squeakily hand-drawn across the stage that endows the whole undertaking with the feel of a ragtag vaudeville or beggars' theater.
For the uninitiated—and Godot should be viewed as a genuine rite of passage for theatergoers—the best description of the play might be that it is about everything and nothing all at once. Two tramps, Estragon (Beau O'Reilly) and Vladimir (Colm O'Reilly)—men who may have had a better existence in earlier years, but clearly have fallen upon very hard times, are waiting in a desolate landscape for a meeting with one Mr. Godot. To be sure, this mysterious stranger is tremendously elusive, though he is believed to have a long white beard, and is for some reason perceived as carrying the promise of salvation. He is bad at keeping appointments, yet he manages to keep anticipation high if only by sending a little goatherd (Josiah Ott) to deliver the news that he won't make the promised meeting on the particular day he is expected, but that he will surely arrive the next day.
The miracle, or the madness, is that this shred of a continually delayed promise somehow keeps the tramps going. No matter how bleak their own lives may be, they go on. And there is always the strange consolation of seeing those worse off than themselves. For example, take the hideous master-slave relationship between Pozzo (H.B. Ward), the rich and vulgar landlord they encounter, and his horribly brutalized servant, the ironically named Lucky (Jeffrey Bivens).
Sure, Estragon, a former poet, who sardonically notes that his current condition is the inevitable outcome of pursuing such a profession, and Vladimir, who is younger, quicker and more given to optimism, contemplate hanging themselves at times, but they always find an excuse not to do so. And their cranky but symbiotic relationship is almost enough to get them from one day to the next, whether they are sharing a carrot or a turnip, doing a little storytelling, offering each other some modest comfort and companionship or engaging in the most mundane bickering. They might not believe in God, but they can't entirely discount "Him," either. So they wait, even if God, it seems, is a no-show.
The O'Reillys in this cast are, in fact, real-life father and son. And there is something quite winning about seeing the cranky, pessimistic, retreating Estragon of Beau and the brighter, livelier, more optimistic and curious Vladimir created by Colm. It alters the usual dynamic a bit, but in a good and humanizing way.
Written in the wake of World War II, Beckett's Godot never loses sight of man's potential for astounding inhumanity to his fellow man. And Ward brings an air of easy entitlement to the fat-cat Pozzo, while Bivens, as the terribly abused Lucky, has just the right bite, and delivers his elaborately arcane speech at a revealing slower-than-usual tempo....
