The Compleat Steve :: About Steve :: Actor :: Plays



	About Steve :: Actor :: Plays Waiting for Godot 1988 Steve studied philosophy in college, which is no doubt one of the reasons he was drawn to Becketts Waiting for Godot. This is Steve's only foray into legitimate theater -- one he says he will not repeat. The most frequently asked question related to the whole site is whether this performance is available on video or dvd. It is not. A few clips exist that were apparently used for publicity. There is nothing else.
			Courier Journal (Louisville, KY) July 24, 1989, Monday METRO Edition NEWS; Pg. 2A IT'S GODOT'S TURN TO WAIT CARLA HARRIS Steve Martin says his experience in last year's all star Lincoln Center production of "Waiting for Godot" has soured him on the theater. The problem wasn't co stars Robin Williams, F. Murray Abraham and Bill Irwin, or the direction of Mike Nichols that was "a gloriously energizing experience," Martin says in the August issue of Fame magazine. It was the reviews, which were "negative to the extreme," Martin said. "Before the show opened, during previews, everybody loved us," Martin said. "Then as soon as the reviews came out the audiences started sitting there without reacting no laughter nothing. . . . I have had plenty of adversity as a stand up comic I played in dives for 15 years. I thought I had had every kind of experience on stage, [the rest of the article isn't there, or else the comma was a typo.]
			Manchester Guardian Weekly November 20, 1988 Pg. 27 Godot with pratfalls W. J. Weatherby at the Lincoln Centre MIKE NICHOLS'S much heralded production of Waiting for Godot at New York's Lincoln Centre is based on a new text received from Samuel Beckett in August just in time for rehearsals. Until this new text is published, it is hard to say just how much Beckett is responsible for turning Godot into a tropical American comedy, with even a joke about the election. Certainly comedian Robin Williams, the master improviser, broke the promise he made in rehearsals to play Estragon straight with no riffing. While the master of mime, Bill Irwin, was in the middle of Lucky's intellectual ramble, Williams apparently could restrain himself no longer and, in the manner of a stand up comic seeking audience participation, he ambled over to the front row and borrowed a woman's programme. He giggled wildly when he spotted his own name in it and then shared the joke with Vladimir, played by Steve Martin. The audience's laughter seemed to inspire him to stray even further from the text. Seeing Bill Irvin still crazily orating, he cried at him "you're a liberal" and the audience, recognising the allusion to Michael Dukakis, laughed even louder. The audience seemed to be all for the improvisations and additions to the text. At the interval an actor behind me praised Robin Williams for being "remarkably controlled" and he was serious. Beckett's drama certainly lost its bleakness and sense of "nothingness" with Messrs Williams and Martin enlivening it with almost every classic comedy routine from Laurel and Hardy slapstick to a Charlie Chaplin game with a bowler hat. There was even a Robin Williams mocking impersonation of military macho. Whether any of it was spontaneous improvisation from their extensive repertoire or whether it was all carefully rehearsed one couldn't be sure, but Mike Nichols's original conception seemed to be to stress the comic side by Americanising the play with Martin and Williams in seedy clothes resembling two of New York's homeless waiting not for Godot but for free dinners. Godot's symbols and double meaning faded into the background as this duet took over. There is nothing like broad comedy of the Williams and Martin kind to bring a dramatist down to earth. Beckett's pregnant pauses and dramatic use of silence that can seem so dull and draggy in more solemn productions was here a wonderful excuse for matchless mime worthy of the great silent comedies, but inevitably some of the meaning of Beckett's fable of Everyman was lost in the fun. F. Murray Abraham's Pozzo and Irwin's Lucky the slave master and his slave were strangely the only characters who were not Americanised or fitted into the comedy act although it would have been easy to do so just by casting a black actor as Lucky. The biggest loss came at the end when Steve Martin's twilight soliloquy seemed too low key and to be playing on the audience's sentimental sympathy after his continual high spirits of the preceeding two acts. Martin's professional manner, bland with a touch of genuine innocence, so amusing when he was playing the bum picking fleas off his seedy clothes, appeared too solemn when he was seriously philosophising. He met the fate of any comedian who plays Hamlet. One noticed not only what a fake philosopher he was but also what a fake bum. Turning Beckett's feast of agnostic irony into a series of revue sketches threatened to make Godot no more than a vehicle for Martin's and Williams' favourite routines. Steve Martin in a film recently turned Cyrano de Bergerac into a contemporary American with a long nose and he has now done much the same with Vladimir. As Mike Nichols did not stride on stage to demand what the hell Williams was doing, his improvisations presumably had the director's approval. But one wonders if there will be any negative reaction when news reaches the author in Paris.
			Financial Times (London) November 12, 1988, Saturday SECTION I; The Arts; Pg. XXII Stars Shine In Beckett Frank Lipsius Waiting for Godot at the Lincoln Centre was bound to be the hottest ticket in New York this season. Performed in the small, 300 seat Mitzi E. Newhouse theatre by a cast of Hollywood stars, Mike Nichols' production is scheduled for only seven weeks to let its principals, Steve Martin and Robin Williams, go back to earning real money. Meanwhile, they bring the panache of their standup comic personas to Beckett's marvellously malleable text. But does the nonchalance of their hip and cynical generation do justice to Beckett? The answer is yes, despite liberties the author would no doubt look askance at, since he is a notorious purist about productions of his plays. There is only one false note, at the end of Act one when Robin Williams as Estragon groans unnecessarily as the lights go down on their inability to move. Yet throughout the production Williams does a complete pantomime with only slight reference to the text. When Vladimir hurriedly exits, Williams stares after him, laughingly lifting his leg and scratching the ground like a dog. He picks up a steer skull and addresses it like Hamlet or moves the jaws like a ventriloquist. To get Lucky to stop talking he shouts out "your're a liberal" in a mocking reference to the presidential campaign. After improvising most of the long monologues in his recent hit film, Good Morning, Vietnam, Williams could claim he is downright restrained. Steve Martin turns Vladimir into a robust, familiar, slightly bombastic character with complete fidelity to the lines. He assumes Vladimir has some affliction that forces him to grab his crotch at regular intervals, but the words are sacred. Martin shows just how adequate the spare dialogue is to form a complete character. Pozzo and Lucky struggle to keep up. Academy award winner F Murray Abraham's assertive Pozzo needs the blindness of the second act to knock out his initial Mafia don mannerisms. Bill Igwin's Lucky looks pathetic and dances vivaciously, both of which he may be supposed to do but looks incongruous doing them. The previous generation of American Beckett actors tended to look emaciated and sound foreign, turning the play into a dirge. Williams and Martin follow more in the tradition of the great comic Bert Lahr, the first American Estragon. Tony Walton's set looks so much like a romanticised American desert it could be a Sam Shepard play. Besides the steer skulls, the sandy road is surrounded by a large tractor tyre and a couple of burned out campfires. Far from accepting the desolate moonscape Beckett ordained, Nichols specifies America by referring to Napa, California's wine growing region. The playbill notes that the text was provided by the author in August 1988, presumably for this production. But the change of locale was probably not among the playwright's alterations, which are unnoticeable. For an American audience, the production rescues profundity from boredom while showing the very best a polished music hall veneer can do for a classic text.

			San Diego Union Tribune July 26, 1989, Wednesday LIFESTYLE, Pg. C 2 SERIES: Public eye Sir Reginald: He's a knight to remember; Quotes you'll never hear; Be wary of Bardot; Ready for Raisa; He's had it Janet Sutter He's had it Comedian Steve Martin says his experience in last year's all star Lincoln Center production of "Waiting for Godot" has soured him on the theater. The problem wasn't co stars Robin Williams, F. Murray Abraham and Bill Irwin, or the direction of Mike Nichols that was "a gloriously energizing experience," Martin told Fame magazine. It was the reviews, which were "negative to the extreme. Out of all proportion," Martin said. "Before the show opened, during previews, everybody loved us. Ate us up. Cheers, bravos, the whole bit. Then as soon as the reviews came out the audiences started sitting there without reacting no laughter nothing. It was chilling." He said he would "never do a play again. Who needs it? And the hours are lousy, too."
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