Comments for WashCult http://menschmedia.com/wordpress Culture, looking outward from the nation's capital Sun, 14 Jun 2009 20:27:08 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 Comment on Waiting for Godot: Second Acts in an Uncertain World by sharon http://menschmedia.com/wordpress/?p=14&cpage=1#comment-5 sharon Sun, 14 Jun 2009 20:27:08 +0000 http://menschmedia.com/wordpress/?p=13#comment-5 I completely agree with your emphasis on Act II and the way it calls into question all that came before in Act I. I would add that only in Act II does the thematic importance of the secondary characters become clear. The reappearance of these characters -- a changed Pozzo, a child who is, or is not, the child from the day before (and the day before that?) removes any possibility of external validation of Vladimir's daily experience. This surely is the definition of slowly going mad. Even the unseen characters -- the brutes who beat Estragon every night -- become critical in Act II. Day or night, Estragon can't overcome, transcend, change his recurring experience. Somehow, in my memory, I reduced Waiting for Godot to essentially a two-charater play, with Didi and Gogo carrying on like an old-timey vaudeville act (with tragic overtones, I grant). No more. Speaking of vaudeville -- you did describe a kind of song (Irwin)-and-dance (Lane) team. Spot on. I completely agree with your emphasis on Act II and the way it calls into question all that came before in Act I.
I would add that only in Act II does the thematic importance of the secondary characters become clear. The reappearance of these characters — a changed Pozzo, a child who is, or is not, the child from the day before (and the day before that?) removes any possibility of external validation of Vladimir’s daily experience. This surely is the definition of slowly going mad. Even the unseen characters — the brutes who beat Estragon every night — become critical in Act II. Day or night, Estragon can’t overcome, transcend, change his recurring experience.
Somehow, in my memory, I reduced Waiting for Godot to essentially a two-charater play, with Didi and Gogo carrying on like an old-timey vaudeville act (with tragic overtones, I grant). No more.
Speaking of vaudeville — you did describe a kind of song (Irwin)-and-dance (Lane) team. Spot on.

]]> Comment on Waiting for Godot: Second Acts in an Uncertain World by Carolyn7334 http://menschmedia.com/wordpress/?p=14&cpage=1#comment-6 Carolyn7334 Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:51:20 +0000 http://menschmedia.com/wordpress/?p=13#comment-6 This is lovely Steve. You're so wonderfully cultured! This is lovely Steve. You’re so wonderfully cultured!

]]> Comment on Waiting for Godot: Second Acts in an Uncertain World by Steve http://menschmedia.com/wordpress/?p=14&cpage=1#comment-4 Steve Mon, 08 Jun 2009 03:17:41 +0000 http://menschmedia.com/wordpress/?p=13#comment-4 posted for Stephen Menick: Hey Steve, that was a very handsome piece on Godot. Do you know that I’ve never seen it performed? But I can’t imagine two better people in it than Bill Irwin and Nathan Lane. Bill Irwin was terrific in Rachel Getting Married. I still haven’t forgotten where I first saw him: in the movie Popeye (Altman directed, Robin Williams starred), in which he runs around the village trying but forever failing to pick up his hat because he can’t keep from kicking it away at the last split-second. You address this issue of what sustains us during or after watching a play like Godot. I think this is the classic redemption issue. I maintain that all good art, or at least all satisfying art (and art should be satisfying) has to have an element of redemption. Which is not the same as a happy ending. And this is the same issue, I think, raised by Leo Rubinfein in my piece on Robert Frank. On a certain level, the redemption is in the art itself (in the depth and honesty of the vision). Which is also the point made at the very end of Lolita. posted for Stephen Menick:

Hey Steve, that was a very handsome piece on Godot. Do you know that I’ve never seen it performed? But I can’t imagine two better people in it than Bill Irwin and Nathan Lane. Bill Irwin was terrific in Rachel Getting Married. I still haven’t forgotten where I first saw him: in the movie Popeye (Altman directed, Robin Williams starred), in which he runs around the village trying but forever failing to pick up his hat because he can’t keep from kicking it away at the last split-second.

You address this issue of what sustains us during or after watching a play like Godot. I think this is the classic redemption issue. I maintain that all good art, or at least all satisfying art (and art should be satisfying) has to have an element of redemption. Which is not the same as a happy ending. And this is the same issue, I think, raised by Leo Rubinfein in my piece on Robert Frank. On a certain level, the redemption is in the art itself (in the depth and honesty of the vision). Which is also the point made at the very end of Lolita.

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