Good news: There’s an excellent production of Samuel Beckett in town.
That would be Teatro Meron’s Waiting for Godot, directed with no hint of embellishment by Ron Capinding. It’s a pretty straightforward iteration that uses the original English text—a rarity in Manila!—and continues the company’s mission of staging the classics intact, in a manner of speaking.
Godot is perhaps the most well-known paragon of absurdism, and famous worldwide as the play in which nothing happens. It’s two men in a desolate landscape waiting for the titular character to come (non-spoiler alert: he/she/they are a no-show). “Nothing to be done” is the oft-intoned mantra of these protagonists—they can’t seem to leave, nor do they have anywhere else to go. Along the way, a secondary pair, an eccentric man and his leashed human companion, perks up the proceedings. The talk is sort of aimless, the time almost without end.
Done poorly, this play might feel like an inescapable recurring dream. But Capinding’s Godot is the total opposite: It’s mesmerizing, its fidelity to the text personified by an ensemble so completely attuned to one another, it’s as if they shared a single wonky nervous system. In their hands, the absurdity of the play therefore becomes real, convincing, life-sized, rational. The talk is the thing: a cold, hard look into the depths of human despair, loneliness, depravity.
And, oh, how funny it all is! This is, in fact, the chief virtue of Capinding’s production: He gets the tragedy of this tragicomedy right—that’s to be expected—but he and his actors also nail the comedy. Their timing is never off, their physical bits outright delightful to behold. You find yourself wishing Godot would never, ever come and rescue these characters from their hysterical predicaments.
The main, despairing pair of Vladimir and Estragon are played by Tarek El Tayech and JJ Ignacio; together, they surprisingly fit firmly within the global continuum of great comedic duos—Dolphy and Panchito, Key and Peele, Steve Martin and Martin Short. There’s a bit here involving Estragon’s failing bladder that shouldn’t work as well as it should.
John Sanchez, the visiting Pozzo, is the marvelous (re-)discovery of this production. As a theater newbie in college, he was already a standout in Tanghalang Ateneo’s Kalantiaw in 2016; then, a compelling anchor in that company’s Alpha Kappa Omega three years later. In Godot, Sanchez is the clearest presence—intimidating, forceful, and just the tiniest bit askew in the head. You can clearly see why his human pet Lucky (played to wordless, pitiful perfection by Lenard Tiongson) would be unable to escape his grasp.
Together, these four actors are giving some of the most lived-in performances one is likely to see this year in Manila. And Capinding’s production has the visuals to match their crazy: Production designer Tata Tuviera has them looking like they’ve just survived a bombing, or the collapse of entire buildings around them, their hairs and faces dusted white, their clothes in slight tatters, ruins of stone and wood surrounding them, the silhouette of destruction in the backdrop.
But here, desolation is as much the physical environment as it is a state of mind. Watching this play, one can’t shake off the feeling that something isn’t quite right, even if everything somehow makes sense. Even the boy, for example—the unseen Godot’s messenger (played by Yael Ledesma)—is more spectral than corporeal, a clownish smile plastered perpetually to his face. It’s all rather unnerving, but these actors, by sheer theatrical will, make you want to stay there with them and wallow in their hopelessness.
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