Theatre Review: Sunder - Waiting for Godot at the Mick Lally Theatre, as part of Galway International Arts Festival

5/5

Patience is a virtue, we are told. Certainly it’s one of many virtues that Druid Theatre Company extoll in this splendid foray into Beckett country. In tackling this landmark of 20th century theatre, director Garry Hynes perfects one tactic in particular — she takes time into account in a simple but captivating way. In Druid’s Godot everything takes time. The removal of boots. The unravelling of Biblical riddles. The mathematics of ending it all. These things take time.

Similarly, while they make a splendid vaudevillian double-act, Vladimir (Marty Rea) and Estragon (Aaron Monaghan) do not merely tee up lines for one another. No matter how familiar or repetitive their refrains become, their lines are invested with the palpable and tender strains of human life, howsoever enervated. In this way, Druid manage to reinvigorate the grim (anti)drama, the absurd comedy, and the weird, unlikely dignity of Beckett’s kooky scenario.