N.Y. STAGE REVIEW : Adding a Pinch of Mischief to ‘Godot’

Every marriage, they say, is a separate contract. It’s the same with “Waiting for Godot.” Its terms will change depending on who is playing in it.

Steve Martin and Robin Williams are playing in it at Lincoln Center--the small Mitzi Newhouse Theatre, downstairs from the Beaumont. Some reviewers have suggested that they are clowning around at the play’s expense. Not so.

They are clowning around. Samuel Beckett wrote his play for two tramps in derby hats, after all. But their clowning has delicacy. Rather than crashing around in Land Rovers--the figure comes from Tony Walton’s Death Valley setting--they respect the play’s ecosystem.

Williams, for example, has been chided for the moment when his tramp picks up a cow’s skull, clacks the jawbone and yips: “It’s a take!”

In cold print, it does sound like “Saturday Night Live.” What hasn’t been made clear is that it’s a passing moment, gone almost before it has registered--the sort of musical joke that a witty young pianist might slip into a cadenza.

Too much of this would lead to travesty. But a pinch of mischief helps take the curse off “Godot” as the bleakest theater piece ever written. And director Mike Nichols makes sure that it’s just a pinch. He and his stars are interested in doing Beckett’s play, not in tearing up the pea patch.

In fact, Williams and Martin seem to welcome the chance not to be wild and crazy, but to be small and precise--to concentrate on a stated text, and let the audience come to them. There is plenty of physical comedy in this “Godot,” but no exhibitionism. When Williams plops down into an empty tire, it’s Estragon plopping down, not Robin Williams.

Once he gets over the surprise, Estragon is as glad to be in his tire as a tot in his bath. Martin’s Vladimir also seems unable to take a permanently gloomy view of their predicament. On the one hand, it’s awful to itch. On the other hand, it’s good to scratch.

This “Godot” catches the odd moments of bliss that crop up like a desert breeze, even in hopeless situations. This Vladimir and Estragon aren’t happy wandering in the wilderness, waiting for Godot to show up. But should they ever be returned to civilization--assuming that there is still a civilization to return to, a point the production leaves moot--they may look back on their wanderings with a certain nostalgia.

On the one hand, it is horrible to have nothing to do all day but kill time. On the other hand, it’s delightful to have plenty of free time. And Williams, in particular has the child’s ability to make the most of the moment. He loves coming up with a new game to play. Oh, good, let’s abuse each other!

From their skill, it’s clear that it’s not a new game at all. They’re as practiced as a couple on their golden anniversary. Martin plays the cheerful, abstract spouse who always seems to be tuned to another channel--nothing that’s said can hurt him, because nothing quite sinks in.

Therefore, Williams has to overdramatize his complaints, which he secretly enjoys doing. It does pass the time. True, as Beckett reminds us, “it would have passed in any case.” But it’s the quality that counts.

Without trivializing the play, Nichols has taken the existential chill out of it, substituting a very American sense of hope. Where most productions imply that the tramps are whistling in the dark, here it’s quite possible that their patience will be rewarded one of these nights.

Meanwhile, there’s a gorgeous melon of a moon to look at, courtesy of lighting designer Jennifer Tipton. Nature is essentially on humanity’s side in this “Godot.” Even at high noon, the light is friendly.

It’s a kinder, more gracious “Godot” than most, which is acceptable and even interesting--up to a point. Still, there needs to be some real pain in Beckett’s play, certainly in the relationship between the pompous Pozzo (F. Murray Abraham) and his blind slave Lucky (Bill Irwin.)

We ought to wince at the former’s physical exploitation of the latter in the first act, and at their mutual increase in degradation in the second act: Clearly these two won’t be rescued. But Abraham’s Pozzo and Irwin’s Lucky aren’t flagrantly enough contrasted with our amiable tramps. They ought to be monsters, rather than just another bad marriage.

In the end, then, this “Godot” proves too benign. But Martin’s and Williams’ terms are perfectly acceptable. Those who hate the notion of two famous comics playing Beckett’s tramps forget that they were first played in the U.S. by Tom Ewell and Bert Lahr. Our tramps are in that same tradition.