Godot, waiting for 1

I have been waiting to see this play for a long time and finally made it last week when the London Classic Theatre (see reference 1) brought it to Epsom.

I was pleasantly surprise to be at a play, while unusual, was both accessible and entertaining. A product, I suppose, of the desolation of the second world war, the many displaced people and the many tramps, most of whom had been damaged in one way or another during that war, whom we were left with during my childhood.

The contrast between the public school manner of the one tramp and the building site manner of the other was nicely done.

I liked the set. The main ingredient was a dozen or so large flat stepping stones scattered around the middle of the stage, with the cast spending a lot of the time stepping, laboriously from one to another. For decoration we had three trees, bare rooted, suspended from the ceiling and four mirrors hanging at the back. The whole being rather dark in tone.

Reminded, on this occasion by the work of both James Joyce and Flann O'Brien. Sound and fury, signifying nothing. Or, in the word in a preface to the latter, 'affectless'. Which is not quite fair in this case, but one can see the connection.

A much more mixed audience than we are used, with quite a lot of couples of working age. Quite a lot of rather slovenly middle aged ladies whom made one think art teacher, or perhaps drama teacher.

Reckoning the audience at 15 rows of 15 people at £15 a pop, the MS calculator gets to £3,375. Say £1,000 for the venue (Epsom only rated a one night stand) , £500 expenses and £500 VAT, that leaves £1,375 for maybe 6 people - 2 principals, 2 others, 1 extra and 1 gopher-driver - we get to around £200 a day for (see illustration) 60 days spanning three months. Say £12,000 for a quarter of a year, say £25,000 for the whole year, allowing half the year for resting. Just about a living wage but one would probably want benefit, fruit picking or whatever to fall back on.

So having done even more exotic Becketts in the fairly recent past (see, for example, reference 2), the Beckett experience may now be said to have been rounded out.

Reference 1: http://www.londonclassictheatre.co.uk/.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/samuel-beckett.html.