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November 8, 2007
A country road. A tree. Evening.
Paul Chan is presenting "Waiting for Godot", starring Wendell Pierce and J. Kyle Manzay, premiering last weekend at a streetcorner in a neighborhood of empty lots in the the Lower 9, and continuing this weekend in the front yard of a gutted house in Gentilly. Admission is free, but arrive an hour early if you want a seat, because they are turning people away.
Cass and I saw the Saturday night showing of this in the Lower 9, along with Alan and Becky, and it is f-ing fantastic.
"Waiting For Godot" is the story of two men, Estragon and Vladimir, who wait on a country road by a small tree at dusk, as they waited yesterday, and the day before, and as they will wait tomorrow, and the day after, for a man named Godot. They're unsure who Godot is, or why they wait for him, and they question whether they are supposed to wait, or whether they have missed him or whether they are possibly in the wrong place. For a while they are distracted by the antics of the arrogant Pazzo and his slave/pig Lucky, but mostly they wait, and talk, and sometimes contemplate suicide, and sometimes contemplate just leaving, and they wonder.
Godot has many interpretations, but it's the existential one I find the most appealing. It seems to clearly mirror the human condition of wondering why we are here, whether there is a reason that we are here, and whether or not there is a mysterious God(ot) who will arrive to explain everything to us. Pazzo and Lucky are the master/slave, boss/employee representation of daily workaday chores and interruptions that continually distract us from wondering about the real reason why we are here.
And the practical reality of the existential question is made crystal clear, seeing it in the Lower 9th Ward, surrounded by overgrown empty lots, with a half-collapsed house behind us, and behind the stage one block distant the brightly lit FEMA trailer of lone neighborhood resident Robert Green, Sr., flying his American flag as barges quietly ply the canal waters behind the patched levees beyond his home. Why is Robert Green here, still, today, and why will he still be here, tomorrow? What does he wait for? What lies in store for him in his solitary existence on a (now) country road, near a tree, in the evening, waiting for a Godot who may never come, wondering what will come, will anything come, while the Pazzos and Luckies careen about and argue and posture and distract us all from the big nothing that transpires daily on that country road, Tennessee Street and North Prieur, Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans.
Where is our God(ot), and when will he come? Or have we missed him? Or are we waiting in the wrong place?
Posted by ray at November 8, 2007 9:03 PM | Permalink
Categories: [katrina | new orleans ]
Tags: lower 9, paul chan, waiting for godot, wendell pierce
Comments
This looks really really extraordinary and I hope I can drag my crippled girlfriend out to see one of these performances.
And, since I am of the firm belief that there is no existential question that cannot be answered by a flip remark, I will say that my take on Godot has always been... Nothing is coming and that's probably a good thing.
Posted by: jeffrey at November 9, 2007 8:00 AM
Profound becomes you, Ray.
Posted by: Darkneuro at November 9, 2007 9:51 AM
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