It was my first time in New York. My friends and I flew
out the morning of the 19th, prepared to fly again that evening,
only willing to make such a lengthy journey for the sole purpose of seeing a
play, Waiting For Godot. The city
itself was as monumental as I expected – gathering all my impressions from
various depictions in novels and films – but while I was dazzled by the rush
and burble of the streets, the real wonderment lay within the quieter walls of
the Cort Theatre.
We picked up our tickets a few blocks away, close to Time
Square, walking through a few more sights of the city, until reaching the Cort.
Already there was a line to get in, all for ticket holders, and shortly after
we arrived the line doubled and tripled until I couldn’t see the end of it. The
marquee showed the four actors we were about to see and instantly I could not
help from smiling. The singular faces that looked upon me were Ian Mckellen,
Patrick Stewart, Billy Crudup (who I did not know I would be seeing at that
point), and Shuler Hensley. My inner-geek was promptly screaming out for Lord
of the Rings, X-men, Star Trek, and Watchmen.
We sat on the highest balcony, four rows up from the
ledge, perched on the edge of our red seats. The stage was cast in low light
and had simple furnishings: wooden deck panels on the floor, raised slightly
upstage; a single barren tree; a small stone bench; all lined with a border of
rock and brick tracing background.
The audience wasn’t full, being a matinee, and was
scattered with groups of high school students and teachers, older couples and
vacationers, young folks and even single viewers. Beside me sat a man of the
latter type, telling me he had picked up a discount ticket just that day.
After the final audience members had filed into their
seats, the house lights were brought down, and as if the air had instantly been
removed from the theatre, everyone immediately silenced. Not a breath or
shifting stir could be heard. I have yet to watch a movie and have this happen,
but I am still waiting for that day. Then, from behind the rock trimming, a
hand and an arm shot out, then a hat, followed by an old man sluggishly
climbing over. Mckellen rose from beyond sight.
To skip the summary of the entire play, as the two giants
entered the stage the audience applauded as was due, and that same elation
lasted until the end of the performance. Mckellen and Stewart were funnier than
I ever thought they could be. The two old friends traded lines so smoothly I
could have sworn their lines were lubricated. It was really a privilege to
watch them in the moment.
The ensuing antics of all four actors, the two old men paired
with the wild exaggerated characters of Lucky (Crudup) and Pozzo (Hensley),
served as some of the most engrossing acting I’ve seen in a long time. It wasn’t
that I believed these actors really were who they were playing (I don’t think
that’s what theatre does), it’s that I could feel the energy and mastery of the
actors, as if it were a thick paste spread over the entire room.
At the end of the play, after the bows and standing
ovations, Mckellen and Stewart exited the stage last, on opposite sides each
other, then threw their hats centre stage, which hit each other and remained.
This simple act was what blew the performance out of the water for me. There
was something so perfect about the moment, about the meaning behind the hats,
about leaving them there while the audience left – it was a purely romantic
gesture. I wish I had taken a picture, but now the image will just have to
remain in description, and in my memory.
Here is what I’ve wanted to say: I was brought to the
theatre, and thus New York, on the pretence of witnessing live the wondrous
aura of Gandalf, Captain Picard, Magneto, and Professor Charles Xavier all at
once – a geek’s wet dream. I was not only going to see them, such as I would at
a convention, but view them acting, moving, breathing in their element. I
couldn’t resist the opportunity to see this.
But as much as I love film and television, I learned that
putting a screen in between the experience of the creators and the experience
of the audience filters out an important immediacy in the art form of acting.
Yes, I was bored at times watching the play. No, I didn’t get to see the actors
as well as I wanted to. But those things, among others, are worth the sacrifice
in order to see experts do what they do best. Within five minutes of the
performance, I wasn’t watching as a geek anymore – Magneto and Professor X
weren’t on stage. These were the real men, their roles as superheroes
superfluous fractions of what these actors really were capable of.
And something very important happened at the culmination
of that play. I was more enthralled with playwriting than I ever have been. To
paraphrase Adam Elliot, I did not just want to grab a hold of life, I wanted to
strangle it – specifically the life of writing. Now, I’m an amateur writer who
writes mainly in prose, but seeing a person’s work elevated to that level made
me hungry for the chance to create something similar.
My advice here is not to go see live theatre so you can
get excited about life again. Instead, if you are excited about creating something
– be it art, writing, music, a business, even a blog – see it happen in the
moment, when there is life injected into its creation. See music live, get on
set, support a local playwright. It may not work, but what I do know is that I’ve
rarely felt more elated than I did the moment two old men through their hats
centre stage.
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