I have a confession: I had never seen or read Waiting for Godot until this weekend. Partly because I’ve never made it a priority, but partly because it seems to be one of those plays reserved for Big Professional Theaters with Big Name Actors Who Really Should Be Paired Together. I think of Robin Williams and Steve Martin; Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan, twice; Rainn Wilson and Aasif Mandvi currently at the Geffen and even Bill & Ted next year. I think of big stages and pretentious, expensive theater-goers. I just don’t often notice it as a local production! So when I saw a local production advertised on my instagram feed – for only $17 a ticket – it only seemed obvious that I should go.

The stage was bare – HPT’s black box dressed with only a tree and a rock. All entrances and exits in the place were utilized, including one that only the smallest cast member (Clark Schutt, as The Boy) fit through. I had to peek behind the wall after the show to be sure he hadn’t simply materialized in that corner for his scenes. The setting could be anywhere, could be nowhere (I’m inclined to the latter). Audience members carefully stepped around props left on the floor as we made our way outside during intermission. Hang on, are we part of this? Are we waiting for Godot too? How meta is this play?

Technically, this Godot was not a production of HPT; it was produced by “Beards of Instagram, a non-existant theatre company producing only this show.” Beards of Instagram seems to consist of friends Michael Joplin and Jeremy Sweetlamb – Vladimir and Estragon. They contrast well. Joplin’s Didi leans to the manic side, bug-eyed and bossy; Sweetlamb’s Gogo has a tendency to look like a kicked puppy as he limps along in one boot. Joplin and Sweetlamb are longtime improv collaborators, and that skill, now that I have seen it, seems a necessary one for this script. The back and forth of their dialogue is all a game! Sometimes Didi commands the ball and sometimes Gogo throws it back; sometimes one of them forgets where they are, fizzles out, stares into a hat. But nothing fazes either of them. In Act 1, Joplin dropped something from his pocket which immediately shattered, but neither of them blinked. Was it staged, on purpose? Or in a play where seemingly anything might happen, perhaps an accidental slip of the finger just as expected as any rehearsed moment.

As Pozzo, Michael D’Alonzo is captivatingly odd, aloof, and intriguing. D’Alonzo possesses a frankness to his character that seems to exaggerate the dream-like situation our characters find themselves in. Pozzo neither pities Didi and Gogo nor seems particularly interested in them, which of course only makes him seem even more interesting. Joplin and Sweetlamb circle ’round the stage frantically while Pozzo and Lucky (Kareem Badr) play out their relationship in stares, grunts, and aggression. Badr’s performance is mostly a powerful physical one, always appearing on the verge of speaking, until he finally lets loose, having been instructed to “think!” and must be stopped by being literally carried from the stage. I only wish I could have seen D’Alonzo and Badr more clearly in the second act. They spend most of their appearance on the ground, and my view was blocked by audience members in front of me. It’s a typical problem in black box spaces that I don’t think can be remedied except by staging things further away.

I’m very glad that this wasn’t a pretentious, big name production. I’m sure those are very good and one of these days there will be a #DreamCast I’ll just have to see. But the friendly, DIY energy of this production was palpable in every aspect of the show, and threw the script into a much more approachable light. Which is not to say that I think I understood it! My partner and I threw ideas at each other in the car on the way home: Purgatory? The working man’s lot in life? Many people much smarter than I have written about it – I’m just here to tell you that Beards of Instagram certainly made me feel like I understood them.

Oddly, just after this production closed, Hyde Park Theatre announced that they will stage their own in-house production of Waiting for Godot in December. As good as this production was, it’s not exactly a play I’m rushing to go see again. Can the Austin theater scene sustain two Godots in one quarter? (Who am I kidding?? It sustained three Romeo and Juliets this spring, including two at the same venue.)

Waiting For Godot by Beards of Instagram and Hyde Park Theatre ran November 7-9, 2024. For more information, visit HPT online.