Waiting for Godot

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Vladimir and Estragon are waiting under a tree for the mysterious Mr Godot. While they wait, they encounter another bizarre twosome, the bombastic bully Pozzo and his slave Lucky. The part of Godot has not yet been cast and never will be, because he never arrives.

One of the most exciting international productions to hit Cape Town comes to the Fugard Theatre in July.

After a phenomenally successful 2 year run, including 2 West End seasons, breaking box office records, and performances across the UK, Australia and New Zealand, the international cast of Sean Mathias’ Waiting for Godot tours to South Africa to perform at the Fugard Theatre in Cape Town, from 31 July to 14 August, with previews on 29 and 30 July.

Sir Ian McKellen, one of the greatest theatre actors of our time, nominated for two Academy Awards as best actor and internationally renowned for his role as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, tops the cast as Estragon; Roger Rees, a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company for 22 years, and recipient of a Tony Award, Olivier Award and an Emmy nomination for his role in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby, plays Vladimir; Olivier Award winning actor and UK television presenter, Matthew Kelly, plays the role of Pozzo and Brendan O’Hea, who has acted extensively across the UK, including productions with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Royal National Theatre, completes the cast in the role of Lucky.

The casting for the Boy will take place in Cape Town, giving two 11 year-old South African boys the unique opportunity of rubbing shoulders and treading the boards with this stellar international cast

Reports from the Daily Telegraph in the UK praised the production as “... almost certainly the funniest and most compassionate production of the play you will ever see.”

Sean Mathias spoke of how it came about to bring Godot to the Fugard, “Whilst planning an International tour of Godot I felt thwarted when the available dates of the South African Theatres suitable for the scale of our production and the actors’ availabilities didn’t co-incide. I then had the good fortune to attend the opening night of the Fugard Theatre in Cape Town and pondered the notion of bringing Godot there. We were about to tour Australia and New Zealand with a set that was a large and intricate piece of architecture. Not only would the costs of transporting it to SA be prohibitive but it would simply never fit into the Fugard. I puzzled further and thought why not bring the production without the set, and therefore without the lighting design – why not re-conceive the whole project? Having successfully played 14 major cities internationally, including two London seasons, with a production that has been acclaimed extensively, the Fugard Theatre then invited me to bring the troupe of actors to them and to start our Godot anew. At the Fugard we will play to an auditorium one quarter the size of other theatres we have previously played and with an ad hoc set and a new lighting design by Mannie Manim, we will re-invent our Godot wheel. The heart and soul of the production – the actors’ performances, will remain intact (albeit a little stirred) but in every other sense – the physical space, the visual impact, the overall dynamics will debut at the Fugard Theatre.”

Praise for the production from the UK and Australia runs
“Sean Mathias’s production is a sumptuously realised conception, utterly convincing in its music hall rhythms and dumbarse clowning and with an easy humanity which does not diminish the poignancy but gives it a human scale.” – Spectator, Australia.
“Waiting for Godot is one of the hallmarks of modern theatre and it is also a showcase for the greatest actors of the day.” – Sunday Herald Sun, Australia.
Ian McKellen as Estragon
“McKellen's performance remains a technical masterclass, and this is an accessible, engaging interpretation of one of the 20th century's most notorious and influential plays” - London Evening Standard, UK
“McKellen's performance as Estragon is so cheesed-off in his grumbles, so poignant in his memory loss, so funny in his moments of childlike elation and so tender in his reconciliations with Vladimir, that for once I find myself unable to carp. There is a combination of skill, warmth and vulnerability in this performance ...” - Daily Telegraph, UK
“Ian McKellen is these days the most silvered and glittering of theatre knights, so it’s a remarkable thing to hear him donning a wild and woolly northern accent to enunciate this idiotic but heartbreaking patter.” - Spectator, Australia.
Roger Rees as Vladimir
“... is bewitching, gloriously twitching, troubled and tender” – Metro, UK
“Roger Rees still fondly remembered for his Nicholas Nickleby with the RSC ... brings a fine mixture of affection and exasperation to his dealings with Estragon, and captures the play's sudden shafts of existential despair” - Daily Telegraph, UK
Matthew Kelly as Pozzo
“Matthew Kelly makes a superbly grotesque, mad-eyed Pozzo” – Daily Telegraph, UK
Brendan O’Hea as Lucky
“superbly done and at one point, a look of gleaming knowing intensity” – Spectator, Australia.
“Don’t miss it.” Independent on Sunday, London

Preview dates:29 and 30 July 2010

Tickets can be booked at the Fugard Theatre or by calling the Fugard Theatre box office on 021 461 4554 or online at www.thefugard.com.
Seating at the Fugard Theatre is unreserved and guests will be seated on a first-come, first-served basis.

When Samuel Beckett’s play first premiered in Paris in 1953, it was a popular and controversial success, and it changed the face of theatre for ever. People have argued endlessly over its meaning, though as  Beckett himself sighed, “why people have to complicate a thing so simple I can’t make out.” Billed as a tragi-comedy, the play is both sad and hilarious, and as powerful today as when it was first staged. As at least one major critic has observed, Beckett “has achieved a theoretical impossibility – a play in which nothing happens, that yet keeps audiences glued to their seats.”

Performed at the Little Theatre 18/5- 5/6 2010 directed by Damon Galgut and starring David isaacs, Graham Weir,  Martin le Maitre, Oscar Petersen

All performances: R250
Students and Pensioners: Tuesday – Thursday R150
Tickets can be booked at the Fugard Theatre or by calling the Fugard Theatre box office on 021 461 4554 or online at www.thefugard.com.
Seating at the Fugard Theatre is unreserved and guests will be seated on a first-come, first-served basis.

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