In theater audiences, we love to sit in the dark and watch the world made for us on stage. We see what we are shown. But sometimes, big things, other things, are happening right in front of your eyes. Even, and maybe especially, on opening nights.
Actor Bernard Behrens told this story of a perilous opening scene on a perilous opening night at the renowned Guthrie Theater. In the 1973 production of Waiting For Godot, he played Estragon (Gogo), with Larry Gates as Vladimir. As many know, it is a famously difficult play, which starts with only two actors on the stage, and a solitary tree. The dialogue might be called, well, disjointed.
“I remember very fondly”, said Behrens, “that Larry Gates had trouble retaining his lines, and whenever he ‘dried up’ he would raise and spread his arms, call out ‘Gogo!’, race across the stage to embrace me (which the two were constantly doing throughout the performance) and whisper in my ear, ‘What the hell do I say now?’ I would give him his line and the scene would then move forward until his next dry. On the opening night of that production, I came on first, struggled to remove my boots without success, and just fell on the floor saying my line ‘Nothing to be done.’ Larry then entered; he was supposed to run about for a few seconds and then say ‘I’m beginning to come to that opinion.’ Well, after I had said my line there was silence except for the pitter patter of his feet running about all over the place. I realized that he had dried, and suddenly he shouted ‘Gogo!’, raced over, knelt beside me, kissed my cheek and whispered ‘I can’t remember my first (expletive) line.’ I gave it to him. He whispered a thank you, got up, went back to his position, said the line, and Waiting for Godot finally got underway.”
I like to imagine the stage managers freezing, watching the opening scene on the opening night go awry, utterly unable to help. Nothing to be done, indeed. Crew in the control booth, stagehands in the wings, actors listening from their dressing rooms, staff in the audience rigid in their seats. Two actors on that vast stage with only a tree and the pitter patter of feet. Behrens and Gates were highly skilled actors; I’ll bet the audience, a full house of 1100, never knew a thing. But we did! We did!
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This tale comes from my book The Guthrie Theater: Images, History, and Inside Stories, from Nodin Press, winner of the Midwest Book Award. The theater has a new production of Waiting for Godot onstage as I write; I was reminded of this story while watching the first entrance of Estragon and Vladimir. (Nobody dried.) Book available in the Guthrie gift shop, or from the author.
Graphics by Wylde Hare, LLC. Guthrie book design by Holly Welch.
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