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Waiting for Godot
Presented by the Auckland Theatre Company at the
Maidment Theatre, Auckland, New Zealand, October 2002
written by Samuel Beckett; directed by Colin McColl

REVIEWS

 
 
        
Michael Hurst as Estragon
Raymond Hawthorne as Vladimir
        



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Vladimir
Estragon
Pozzo
Lucky
Boy

 

Raymond Hawthorne
Michael Hurst
Paul Barrett
Jon Brazier
Jake Howie
Director
Designer

Lighting Design
Costume Design 
  Colin McColl
John Parker
Bryan Caldwell
Elizabeth Whiting

Program Notes:

From the producer: In a millenial poll conducted by London's Royal National Theatre, Beckett's masterwork was voted Most Significant Play of the 20th Century. First performed in 1953, it redefined dramatic boundaries for the artform and its audience, changing them both forever. From the great plays of Pinter, Albee and Stoppard to most contemporary playwrights, Godot's inspiration and influence can be clearly discerned. Indeed, in form and content, Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a total Godot homage. Today, Beckett's contemplation on the nature and point of human existence seems startlingly modern and richly comedic. Many meeting the play for the first time will be surprised by its humour: boisterous, wicked and absent of 'holiness'. Because he writes for actors with a profound understanding of their processes and a love for their theatrical milieu, Beckett provides a solid literary foundation while allowing space for interpretation. This is the hallmark of a classic that affirms Godot's place in theatre's history and assures its place in theatre's future.

Simon Prast 

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Reviews and Articles on Waiting For Godot

New Zealand Listener :  "Hurst is a cleverly comic but very human Gogo, whose lack of memory condemns him to living utterly in the present, giving him a childlike dependence while robbing him of volition."

Sunday Star-Times:  "Hurst as Estragon is a rubbery vaudevillian fool, leaping about the stage with the easy grace of a physical comedian."

New Zealand Herald:  "Hurst's Estragon is the petulant, face-pulling clown."

New Zealand Herald (preview):  "In one of the most characteristic and memorable moments, Vladimir explains to Estragon the significance of claiming that one of the thieves crucified with Christ was saved and the other damned. If those are our chances then, as he sagely concludes, it's a reasonable percentage."