Atalaya adds another milestone to its forty-year history with Waiting for Godot – | ACHTUNG!

2023-10-28 19:31:02

This text of Samuel Becket puts the spectators in the position of facing a tension, between the feeling that nothing seems to happen throughout the entire work, with the words and actions of its bizarre characters, making the audience question the meaning of the story. own existence.

There came the exhaustive management work of this Andalusian company, led by Ricardo Iniesta and Sario Téllez, professionals who were wise in prioritizing that the entire work be cohesive when it came to guiding their performers in accordance with the lighting design, the set design, the costumes, etc.… Thus, we, the spectators, were faced with a version of Waiting for Godot which stands out for not making us “row” every minute (given the density that characterizes it), in favor of us experiencing the permanent disorientation to which these characters are subjected.

So much so that, if one did the exercise of not paying attention, for a moment, to the words of said text, one understood the emotions and roles that the characters they were playing were playing. M. Asensio, J. Arenal, M. Reyes, A. Casado and T. de los Reyes (visual image). The above should be one of the objectives to be pursued by every theater professional. That is: The interpretation would be blurred if there is no script/direction guidelines. Likewise, the text would be relegated to the field of literature, if there is no interpretation/direction to sustain it on stage.

Furthermore, the members of Watchtower They dared to “play” with the attention of us viewers, once the second act of the play began, since, among other things, the actors and actresses exchanged the character duos that had been given at the beginning. Providing this version with a series of nuances that clarified that, despite everything, there is a passage of time and these characters evolve accordingly; as well as, that the work of the interpreter must be at the service of the collective and what is wanted to be communicated to the spectators.

Photo: Felipe Varela

This is a proposal that would lead to the emergence of original texts that would contribute to the deepening of the role of the performer in the performing arts. Meanwhile, the versatility of the professionals involved is strengthened. To this extent, this version of Waiting for Godot It offers a pedagogical task to its viewers, and more specifically, to stage professionals who have had the opportunity to see it in person.

Regarding the content of this classic of literature, I must highlight that this work requires its viewers to rethink what type of questions that are brought to light, they prefer to prioritize for their daily lives. Otherwise, one would be at the expense of the “lurches” to which we are exposed, without hardly exercising the margins of maneuver that we have, that is to say: I have the feeling that behind temperance, there also lies making decisions about what what one wants to do with one’s life, assuming that not everything is in our hands. Something that is sometimes confused with “letting go.” Since, at the end of the day, behind all this lies a kind of faith in what we think and do with our lives.

For example, the fact that a tragicomedy has been made of the fact that Tarragon and Vladimir They spend their time waiting for someone they don’t really know and without being clear why they wait, it is a humorous metaphor about the fact that one can spend a good part of one’s life devoted to something, for the mere fact that it gives one a certain sense of heading towards a certain place. Instead of daring to ask questions about why one continues to “hold” what has been “held” until now. What I want to get at is that this work puts a mirror in front of its viewers/readers, so that they can assume responsibility for what they have done with their lives, and by extension, what they have based the construction of their respective lives on. identities.

Photo: Felipe Varela

Along these lines, the relationship between Pozzo y Lucky It is so deteriorated in its logic that both depend on each other to define their place in the world. Leading to almost irrelevance, what was it that placed them in the roles of “master and slave.” Of course this work leads to a delirious caricature, however, if we focus on the inconsistencies and arbitrariness that drive Pozzo’s actions, or the traces of lucidity exposed in Lucky’s monologue, it gives rise to thinking that our destinies They will be decided based on how we manage what is put in front of us, regardless of whether one has made “good” or “bad” decisions. Since there will always be at our disposal a small “crack” that we can crack, to get out of the supposed “pit” into which we have fallen by “accident”.

Of course Waiting for Godot enough to write monographs of hundreds of pages, but in this case, I consider it more edifying to focus on the fact that these contents and many other issues would not have reached the Atalaya public, if the latter had not done an impeccable job in, basically, all areas. . Seriously, this is worth putting high in the annals of the forty years of history of this company which, without a doubt, is a reference in Spain in contemporary research theater.