Ted Dykstra and Alexander Thomas in Waiting for Godot | Photo by Elana Emer
With its absurdist humour and existential dread, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot is an iconic and esteemed theatrical landmark. I understand why some may find it insufferable, either from experience or reputation—to each their own. I am very fond of it. I love the credit Beckett gives us, inviting us to find the human truths in relentless nonsense, to recognize ourselves in the lunacy. Even the meta theatricality—such a ubiquitous trend now, and often employed so cheaply—is subtle and unobtrusive, offered in sly little nods, ensuring we never “weary of this motif.”
Coal Mine Theatre’s production, their season opener, is a classic, sturdy affair; and by that I mean: dirty, sad, hilarious, bleak and poetic—all the things it is and should be. It hits the marks and even has some surprises of interpretation. And The Boy (Kole Parks) is really a child here, which gives the two moments where we see this little guy as identical brothers—who are, perhaps, destined to replace Vladimir and Estragon—such potency.
Kelli Fox’s staging has all the recognizable particulars, both tonal and aesthetic: Farce. Pathos. Dirt. An overcast sky. A barren tree—shrub? bush? Bowler hats. The moon. Scott Penner’s set is both real and unreal with its gritty, natural textures and obvious artifice that both enhances and undermines a dual reality—grim, deeply human circumstances framed by a playfully stagey facade. Ming Wong’s costumes are beautifully tattered and stained—so comforting in their lack of dignity. They are worn in threadbare defiance of dignity—a slapdash assertion of abject personhood.
The is a space where you cannot judge Estragon (Ted Dykstra) and Vladimir (Alexander Thomas). They are beyond our opinions of them. These two tramps, stuck in their rut, forced to idle away the time in recurrent banter—arguing, consoling, lamenting, distracting—while they wait for some purpose that will never manifest, though it forever might!
Dykstra’s Estragon, his feet sore from boots that are too small, is the most worn-down and doddering of the two. His eyes go from wild to weary as he constantly scratches at himself, always only half-awake. We sense this episode, the monotony, has been occurring, ad nauseam, for years and years, but he can never remember the specifics. Vladimir on the other hand, can never forget. Thomas, with a wistful and yearning lucidity, is almost articulate, his face betraying an attention both wretched and buoyant. Together, they are so perfectly right for each other, a glorious pair of haphazardly committed clowns in a desolate circus.
Pozzo (Jim Mezon) and his meek slave Lucky (Simon Bracken) aren’t in any better state when they enter the scene. Mezon is charismatically appalling as a tyrant, aimless and ineffectual despite all his bluster, with no more dignity than his slave at the end of a rope. Bracken surprised me with Lucky’s infamous, four-page speech about nothing. On the page and in the one film I’ve seen, it is a steady stream of blather, increasing in speed and intensity. Bracken’s delivery is parcelled out, luxurious, rather camp. I was thrown, at first, as it doesn’t quite seem to justify Pozzo’s hysteria and desperate need to shut him down. But there is still something distressing in it—in the confident, relentless lack of sense.
If you don’t like this play, I doubt this production will be a revelation for you; if you do, it’ll satisfy. From that sad, scrawny carrot and the actors’ crunchy footsteps to Louise Guinand’s understated lighting change for Vladimir’s epiphany, it is a carefully considered and faithful rendering.
I have such affection for these goofballs, perpetually on the cusp of meaning, cursed by an awareness of their futility and haunted by the passage of time. As crummy as their situation is, they amuse me and I take comfort in knowing they have each other. And that they endure. It’s not much, I guess, yet it’s also everything.
Waiting for Godot
September 14 to October 5, 2025
The Coal Mine Theatre
(2076 Danforth Ave)
2 hours, 30 minutes (including intermission)
Ted Dykstra and Simon Bracken in Waiting For Godot | Photo by Elana Emer