Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter of “Bill & Ted” reunite for “Waiting for Godot” on Broadway, which is being performed at the Hudson Theatre in New York City.
This tragicomedy was directed by Tony award-winning director Jamie Lloyd (“Sunset Blvd.” and “A Doll’s House”). Michael Patrick Thornton also stars as Lucky, and this show marks Keanu Reeves’ Broadway debut.
In this Samuel Beckett classic play, the celebrated actors Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter who are real-life friends are portraying two friends Estragon and Vladimir respectively.
These two characters are searching for meaning in an absurd world. It asks some of life’s big questions but answers none of them. Historically speaking, this show holds the distinction for being “the greatest play ever written about nothing.”
“Waiting for Godot” was subpar, forgettable, and dull. The plot was convoluted and the performances and the production, as a whole, fell thin.
It is a weird, difficult and meandering play. From these two actors, Alex Winter gives a more heartfelt and resonant performance, and does a solid job with the material that he has.
Keanu’s acting performance in this play is lackluster, and he is unable to connect with the script himself (nor the audience along the way because it lacks emotion).
The 2013 version of this play, which starred Sir Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart was utterly fantastic (where both actors were transformative and they had tremendous chemistry together), but this new re-imagined interpretation pales in comparison.
This play is yet another substantial indication once again that stunt casting (hiring A-list actors and jacking up the ticket prices in the high-hundreds range) doesn’t always work favorably on Broadway.
The same holds true for prior Broadway productions that starred Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal in “Othello” and George Clooney in “Good Luck, and Good Luck.”
There are tons of shows on Broadway and Off-Broadway that are leaps and bounds better than “Waiting for Godot” from a writing, directing, production, and acting standpoint, and way more affordable and more reasonable in price.
This journalist would recommend that the audience save their money, and spend it on other theater shows instead (the list is endless to choose from). “Waiting for Godot” garners two out of five stars.
