There's a reason why certain plays--the ones you read in high school and college--are part of the theatrical canon: They are timeless dramas that explore universal truths or ponder eternal questions about human nature. By any standard, Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot is one of the great plays of the 20th century, a drama that has spawned thousands of dissertations. On its Broadway opening night in 1956, The New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson wrote "It is a mystery wrapped in an enigma." And so it remains today, and probably forever. Godot is one of those plays that must be done with conviction, a belief that the mystery might reveal itself by the end of the evening though it never does (or does it?). The Godot at Berkshire Theatre Festival is BTF at its very best—precisely staged in the intimate Unicorn Theatre with masterful actors, who are engaging, funny, fierce and poignant. While making the play feel contemporary (and not so rooted to its post-war Europe origins), director Anders Cato excels when his actors have to do slaptick schtick, which is one of the counterintuitive charms of this evening of existentialism. As Gogo (the role originated on Broadway by Bert Lahr) Stephen DeRosa seems to be channelling Groucho Marx in the most delightful way imaginable. David Adkins as Didi has one of those malleable faces that expresses disappointment in dozens of ways, and you can feel his heart breaking. David Schramm makes the over-the-top Pozzo seem totally believable and his slave, the ironically-named Lucky, is played by Randy Harrison with an extraordinary unselfconscious pathos. And the clever set by Lee Savage turns the arrival of the goatherd played by Cooper Stanton into a surreal moment. You may not understand Waiting for Godot, but it will engage your mind, rattle your soul and make you feel lucky to live where summer theater is both ambitious and accomplished.
