Gate Theatre's "Godot": Existentialism with an Irish lilt

I have seen "Waiting For Godot" at least a half-dozen times, including once in the maximum-security prison at San Quentin enacted by inmates doing hard time.
Yet I had never heard Samuel Beckett's watershed play so completely, before taking in the Gate Theatre of Dublin's acclaimed, long-touring "Waiting for Godot" the other night at the Moore Theatre (where it runs through Sunday).
As the two hapless tramps Vladimir and Estragon, who linger in a nameless place hoping for the arrival of an unknown benefactor, actors Barry McGovern and Johnny Murphy speak Beckett's opaque, pithy, witty, stop-and-go dialogue with rare ease and naturalness.
Their existential predicament (mainly: Do we exist? And what for?) is universal. And it was first expressed by Beckett in a French version of the play, which he later adapted into English.
Yet listening to the dry, droll and lilting cadences of these Dublin performers, all seasoned Beckett hands, you realize how much the real mother tongue of "Godot" is Beckett's first language: Irish English.
Since its controversial debut half a century ago, "Waiting for Godot" has been loaded down with philosophical, historical and symbolic freight. But the wonder of the Gate's mounting, directed with a spare hand and a keen ear by Beckett's old friend and assistant, Walter D. Asmus, is how unpretentiously the actors bear all that baggage.
As they bicker, embrace, complain, play futile games, sing, rage and simply stand around and kill time together, Murphy's grizzled, baggy Estragon, and McGovern's spry and ruminative Vladimir, are a humorous and touching team.
Whether they are simply trying to get on with, or hang on to, or hang up, a life that provides so little in the way of meaning or redemption, we can relate. And their dilemma is all the more poignant, and absurd, because they often meet it with a shrug of the shoulders, rather than a howl of angst or a load of shtick.
Still, this is a play about waiting. And waiting. And waiting. As such, it can alienate those who would rather not linger in that void Beckett explored without compromise. Or in that bleak historical context: the aftermath of two world wars, the advent of the A-bomb and the collapse of religion as a global panacea.
The play is also about repetition, the kind life (and every long marriage) is full of. (Periodically, the two ask, "Would we better off splitting up?" or tell each other "Let's go," and proceed to stay put.)
And it is about power dynamics, biblical and literal. In this regard, Murphy and McGovern are joined by two other splendid actors: Alan Stanford as the imperious Pozzo, who speaks in uppity Queen's English but is eventually laid low, and Stephen Brennan, as Pozzo's unlucky (and mesmerizingly graceful) slave, Lucky.
The cast is rounded out by young Barry O'Connell, as a boy delivering enigmatic messages from Godot.
Take some time to delve into the text of "Waiting for Godot," before seeing it, and you find a wealth of Christian allusions, bleak truisms, clown riffs and sly jokes at the play's own expense. "This is becoming really insignificant," Vladimir declares, before one of many, long scripted pauses.
He's right, in a way. But consider this: "Waiting for Godot" is unarguably one of the most influential plays of the 20th century. See the Gate perform it, and you may understand why.
Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com
Theater review
"Waiting for Godot" by Samuel Beckett, produced by the Gate Theatre, runs through Sunday at the Moore Theatre, 1932 Second Ave., Seattle; $38.50-$43.50 (206-292-ARTS or www.themoore.com).