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Waiting For Godot at
West Yorkshire Playhouse
Jeffery Kissoon and Patrick Robinson
PATRICK Robinson is laughing, while Jeffery Kissoon is ranting. The latter recalls a recent part which saw him play opposite Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall in a stage version of Antony and Cleopatra.
âDo you know she would not kiss me?â he says. âThere I am in this scene emerging broken from the battlefield and Antony asks for a kiss from Cleopatra, from the woman he loves. And she did everything she could to avoid it. Can you believe it? Also she insisted towels were laid everywhere to catch the beads of sweat that came off me, she even insisted I carry a handkerchief with me on stage to wipe myself before I could even touch her.â
At this point Robinson, sitting next to his Waiting for Godot co-star in the West Yorkshire Playhouse cafe, gasps in disbelief. But that isnât the end of it...
âAnyway, the production got good reviews and everything, but now they want to replace me. And will they replace me with another black British actor? If so, who is it gonna be? Because I reckon if they do, they need Lenny Henry. Heâs becoming the best Shakespearean actor in England...well, if they say heâs the best then we (he gestures towards Robinson) must be fantastic.â
At this point Robinson bursts into another fit of gigglesâ- and Kissoon continues...
âI love Lenny Henry as a guy,â he says. âAnd I did go to London to see his Othello and he was fine. But you feel that, to a certain extent, the people who are gonna put Lenny there are doing it because of his celebrity. They are doing him a disservice. Youâre challenging an actor whoâs comparatively inexperienced, who is actually very wooden on stage, looking for his spot to stand on.
âIf he thinks he can ride on that then he can think again âcos theyâre just using his ass to put bums on seats. He may have studied for the part but heâs got a long way to go before he gets the experience to do Othello. Just because youâre big and black, you think thatâs a reason for you to do it? I donât, personally.â
Even well-acquainted of actors donât normally put on a double act this captivating. So itâs surprising to discover that Robinson and Kissoon had never met before they signed up to take on the roles of Vladimir and Estragon in Waiting for Godot, which opens next week at the Playhouse.
Yet the rapport seems obvious. Itâs also essential since they are tackling one of the most famous and respected two-handers in theatreland.
Itâs in safe hands, though. Robinson, 48, is best known to most people as Ash in BBC1âs Casualty in the 1990s, but heâs been on the stage for over 25 years, most recently in West End blockbuster, and subsequent Spielberg film, War Horse.
Longer in the tooth Kissoon, meanwhile, has an even longer career, working with every top theatre director from Trevor Nunn to Nicholas Hytner, tackling just about every classic in every theatre you care to mention. Every classic other than Waiting for Godot, however.
âI hadnât even read it, to be honest, even though I had a copy at home on my shelf,â says Kissoon. âSo I had no idea what to expect. Like a lot of people, Iâd heard about it and I knew it was a special number so as soon as they said they were doing it I was like âYes, please!ââ
âI nearly didnât go for the interview,â admits Robinson. âBecause I was out of work at the time and couldnât afford to drive to London. Then a friend of mine said âIts a brilliant pieceâ, so I went.
Described as a tragicomedy, the Samuel Beckett masterpiece centres on two men who are waiting under a roadside tree for something. While they wait they talk â argue, debate, joke, lament â itâs a masterstroke of dialogue which comparatively few plays have achieved. But the intensity of that dialogue is what makes it so outstanding and, potentially, a real challenge for any actor.
âThese parts are so well knitted together itâs a pleasure once you get it,â says Kissoon. âWhen the flow of dialogue occurs itâs lovely but until you do itâs difficult. You have to really get the lines in your head before you can really enjoy the playing.
âYou have to be on the ball with it all the time because the dialogue is so fast and there are so many one-liners in there itâs like ping-pong. So you canât lose your concentration just for a second or youâll miss something. The humour thatâs in there is incredible, particularly the fact that weâre transferring the Irish humour to the Caribbean humour.â
Almost 60 years after it was first premiered in Paris, this production comes from Talawa theatre company which specialises in all-black casts and invariably viewing works through a specific prism. So this version is something of a landmark, particularly since itâs the last production which the Playhouse artistic director, Ian Brown, will direct before leaving the role later this year.
This production sees Vladimir and Estragon transformed into two down-at-heel immigrants in a similar vein to the tramps which Beckett referred to in his original work.
Kissoon says: âIâm modelling Vladimir on guys Iâve seen under the bridge on Portobello Road in London. You see them in all the betting shops, all the old black guys, theyâre in theyâre all mashed up on drink or some awful drug or something. You know, they came across here in the 1950s and now theyâre wasting away â Iâve seen some real sights.
âIt kind of chimes with that experience of being in a strange, lost world. My parents came over in their 40s and had no idea what to expect or do â youâre taken from your home in Africa, transported to the West Indies, and then they end up in England. And because itâs an all-black production, automatically thereâs something thatâs new and informed by a totally different experience â youâll definitely see a different Godot.â
Robinson adds: âAlthough weâre doing it with an all-black cast, whether weâd done it straight or in this Caribbean style, I think what will be good is that when we go to various venues they wonât realise or think of it as âA Samuel Beckett Modern Classicâ.
âThen they might ask, âWhat was that play? Waiting for Godot? Iâve never heard of it, but it was really funny.â Then they might realise thereâs all that history to it. Thatâs more interesting than just trying to get in âthe intellectualsâ, you know, weâd like more ordinary people to come in and see it and think about it afterwards.â
Kissoon says: âWeâd hope that many people out there coming might not have seen it before. Can you imagine how annoying it would be to have an audience full of people who know Godot inside out. Youâre sitting there with people saying âIâve seen Ian McKellen or whoever doing itâ. Oh gosh â boring!â
From February 3 to 25, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Quarry Hill, Leeds, ÂŁ17 to ÂŁ27, 7.45pm, mats 2.30pm. Tel: 0113 2137700. www.wyp.org.uk
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