O.C. THEATER : Austere Brilliance of ‘Godot’ Shines in Alternative Repertory Offering

With some exceptions, the critics were more or less mystified by Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” when it first appeared during the mid-’50s. They damned it regardless of whether they were writing notices for lowbrows or highbrows.

“ ‘Godot’ is merely a stunt,” John Chapman advised in New York’s Daily News.

Walter Kerr went him better (and windier) in the New York Herald Tribune, calling the play “a patiently painted, painstakingly formed plastic job for the intellectual fruit bowl.”

One of the snickering reactions most frequently cited by theater historians--”Nothing happens, twice”--is not only amusing but actually accurate to the extent that the title character fails to arrive in either of the play’s two acts.

By now, anyone who has paid the slightest attention to Beckett’s work surely knows that while the non-arrival of the mysterious Godot is central to the theme of the play, the plot revolves around two tramps named Vladimir and Estragon. They do the all-important waiting.

And, in that respect, plenty happens: Didi and Gogo--as they affectionately refer to each other--eat, pace, argue, embrace, consider suicide and, among other things, encounter a pair of travelers named Pozzo and Lucky.

As everyone must also know, especially after being reminded by the playwright’s recent obituaries, “Godot” is a tragicomic clown show about the catastrophe of the human condition.

The production that just opened at the Alternative Repertory Theatre, perhaps the most mature to grace the tiny stage of this 2 1/2-year-old storefront troupe, offers a respectable approximation of what Beckett intended.

It looks spare, is abstract in scenic design and authentic in dress. Director Bill DeLuca has applied a sure hand. He knows where the play should head, and he tries, if not always successfully, to bring it home in minimal increments.

But what this production has to offer most of all is F. Thom Spadaro, who gives a stunningly good performance as Gogo. Spadaro puts his stamp on the role with a combination of goggle-eyed wonder and a genuine sense of anguish.

His performance is all the more noteworthy because Christopher Ward’s Didi turns out, regrettably, to be a monotonous disappointment. Didi’s portrayal comes off as invariably mincing, synthetic and mannered--which leaves Spadaro acting in a void.

If not for Ward’s distracting artificiality, this “Godot” might have come a lot closer to achieving the bleak comic dryness that is one of the play’s great hallmarks. Lacking that, Beckett’s deadpan irony naturally loses some of its impact.

Even so, the austere brilliance of the play shines through. Beckett wastes no time laying down the laconic style of the two bantering protagonists. The opening moment is typical of their double-edged bulletins.

“Nothing to be done,” says Gogo, who is struggling desperately to take off his boot and means only that he may have to resign himself to the fact that he can’t extricate his aching foot.

But Didi takes the remark philosophically. “I’m beginning to come round to that opinion,” he replies. “All my life I’ve tried to put it from me, saying, ‘Vladimir, be reasonable, you haven’t tried everything.’ ”

And for the rest of the play, they engage in a nonstop badinage worth savoring for its myriad of split-level contentions about everything from boots to the Bible, food to fornication, salvation to suicide. However, the arrival of Pozzo, who is on his way to a market to sell his enigmatic slave named Lucky, darkens the mood and shifts the tone.

“Godot” goes from a spare two-hander to near-operatic lushness. Suddenly, we get virtual arias spewing with fury or lilting with nostalgia. And William H. Waxman as Pozzo and Tom Orr as Lucky do creditable jobs.

“The tears of the world are a constant quantity,” Pozzo intones. “For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh. Let us not then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappier than its predecessors. Let us not speak well of it either. Let us not speak of it at all. It is true the population has increased.”

If there is any mystery left to “Waiting for Godot,” which has spawned entire bookshelves of literary criticism about existential symbolism and the like, it is just this: How come the pompous, florid slave master seems to be speaking most directly for Beckett himself?

‘WAITING FOR GODOT’

An Alternative Repertory Theatre production of Samuel Beckett’s play. Co-directed by Bill DeLuca and Patricia L. Terry, with the assistance of Irene C. Turner. Produced by Kathleen Bryson. Scenic design and lighting by David C. Palmer. Costumes by Karen J. Weller. Makeup by Gary Christensen. With F. Thom Spadaro, Christopher Ward, William H. Waxman, Tom Orr and Saul Wheeler. Performances continue through March 10 at the theater, 1636 S. Grand Ave., Santa Ana. Show times are Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m.; Sundays at 7 p.m. Tickets: $12 ($10 for students and seniors). Information: (714) 786-1807.