I’ve always felt Beckett is like a good wine: he gets better as you get older. I managed to skip him in high school, but discovered him in university. With each passing year as I re-visit him, I find more and more layers that resonate with me, making each viewing or reading of his work a joyful experience. This was the case for Queensland Theatre Company’s latest production of Waiting for Godot, which is part of their Education Performance season.

The show is famous for it’s almost complete lack of plot. Two men wait in an unnamed space for the mysterious Godot. They are visited upon by the pompous Pozzo, who drags along the near-catatonic Lucky on a leash. Nonsensical dialogue and battles over food ensue. Pozzo and Lucky leave, the sun sets. Godot has not arrived. The sun rises again on act two, where much the same occurs again, slightly differently. And that’s it. Make no mistake, this is a play where very little happens for over two hours. The cast are expected to keep a teenage audience engaged for the entire time. I don’t envy them.

The show can have any number of interpretations, but the most common one is that Beckett is presenting a broad treatise on the nature of existence. Godot is, as you might expect, God, but also life, death, success, and everything. The consistent lack of satisfaction for the main characters is what makes the work the hallmark of existential angst.

Joseph Mitchell, the director, has proven he’s a deft hand with Beckett in the past and has risen to the challenge again. Mitchell clearly understands one of the most commonly-held misconceptions about Beckett and Absurdism: that the work is monumentally depressing. What you realise within minutes of Godot is that Beckett was a wonderful comedian. The play is absolutely hilarious.

This is a revelation obviously not lost on Mitchell, who has managed to assemble a cast that has you in stitches. The broad physical comedy collides with Beckett’s nonsensical wit to create a truly compelling, entertaining and moving performance. Eugene Gilfedder and Bryan Proberts are astonishingly good. They never dare ask you for the laugh, but subtly play inside Beckett’s void to give it a whimsy that you don’t expect. Supported by Martin Blum and Johnathan Brand, the ensemble cast manage to make Beckett look easy. This is no mean feat.

This somewhat dissolves an initial query I had. I couldn’t help but wonder whether the majority of high school students would be able to enjoy and gain anything from the experience of seeing Beckett. I feared them falling into the chasm of believing that the show is somehow a call to suicide, or a submission to a complete lack of meaning. What Mitchell emphasizes here, however, is the comedy. Where younger students would not be able to absorb the confusing world of existential angst, there are powerful lessons to be learnt here about master and servant comedy.

This is what makes the show a successful addition to the company’s Education Performance season. The teenage audience that surrounded me on the night I attended found it hilarious, and were engaged for the entire two act piece. For a play where nothing happens, this is a spectacular achievement.

Where the acting and directing shine, the technical sides to the production are sound and unsurprising. An obligatory Absurdist theatre crescendo of white noise pulls us in and out of the action as we transition between acts. The lighting subtly changes as day turns into night. The costumes are mostly unremarkable. I long for an Absurdist piece of theatre that surprises us with it’s design, but I did not find it here.

The set, however, is particularly clever. It is an awkward, asymmetrical space that is surprisingly small, yet manages to occupy the Billie Brown Studio like an imposing monolith. It strikes just the right balance between a restrictive space and a playful one, assisting the comic action. Again, nothing incredibly surprising, but used very well.

As I leave the theatre, a stranger in front of me says to his friends: “I feel like hanging myself now”. His companions agree. So I wonder again at the adolescent who has never seen Beckett. It’s impossible how many leave feeling a sense of joy at Beckett’s silliness or those who feel a need to be annihilated as this young many did. I am always insecure that the theatre industry falls into a habit of just entertaining itself.

For whatever it’s worth, Mitchell has made Godot as accessible as it possibly can be. The show is funny, compelling, rich, moving and is a wonderful achievement. I can only hope the majority of the young audience feel the same way.

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