I should have mentioned that I am not one of the main characters in Waiting For Godot. You know how it is, though. If I deliver a pizza to Blanche DuBois, I think Streetcar Named Desire is a play about a pizza delivery woman who has weird customers.

The major characters are Estragon and Vladimir (think Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, played by Paul Tessier and Mark Carins). They have been friends forever, we think, and down on their luck for a long, long time. This guy they’re waiting for, Godot, may be the guy that saves them. The entire play is about what happens while waiting to be saved.

We had a guy up from Toronto today to review our physical antics, and to teach us how to use a whip. I’d like to say that you haven’t lived till you’ve learned how to crack a whip.

How fantastic is it that in theatre we learn how to fall down stairs, crack whips, and harmlessly kick the heck out of each other?

How fantastic is it that you could build an entire career in that field?

How fantastic is it to be doing all of this while learning one of the wild-and-craziest scripts of the twentieth century?

More later,

kristin

I'm in this play called Waiting For Godot.  Maybe you've heard of it.

^{It's supposed to be one of the greatest plays of the 20th century.}

^{When I tell people we’re doing Godot, I get one of three responses.}

^{Oh my God, I LOVE that play, it’s the most interesting piece of literature I’ve ever encountered. (At that point, some people throw in words like existentialism and absurdism. When I was at university, these people dressed exclusively in black turtlenecks, drank bad Spanish wine, and played sitars by the light of candles dripping over the sides of Mateus bottles. You know these people.)}

^{O my God, I can’t stand that play. I don’t get it. I’ve read the first half, didn’t make it through the second. Nothing happens. I saw it on stage with my English class – I was forced to go - and I still don’t get it.}

^{Never heard of it. Who is Samuel Beckett? Who is Godot?}

^{Who is Godot? Ha!}

^{Well, to all of you, particularly those belonging to categories two and three, I’d like to say a couple of things.}

^{This is a very strange play.  But it is also funny, tender, and bound to shake up our expectations about what a "normal" story is. It’s like watching a French movie, wondering what’s wrong, and realizing that I have an ingrained Hollywood expectation that something should blow up every ten minutes.}

^{Godot is not Hollywood. But the more we rehearse it, the more I can identify with each of the crazy characters on that stretch of road with only each other for company.}

^{I’m proud of the Guild for choosing theatre that challenges as well as entertains.}

^{More later.}

^Thanks,