Estragon's foot emerges from a hole in the roof, and his body follows. Once the lights were restored, the play began. On the night this reviewer saw Godot, it was in the midst of a thunderstorm above Harlem - indeed the lights went out during a power surge before the play began, and there was water dripping from a hole in the roof into the pool onstage. Add to this the political and social framework that surfaced from the urban apocalypse of Hurricane Katrina, and Beckett's work could become increasingly significant to a modern audience. The play's ever extant themes of isolation, invisibility and existentialism become increasingly layered with a racial framework. There have been several controversial and successful productions in the past with racially mixed casts. Placing this classic in a racial framework is not new. While set designer Troy Hourie's water-world may be the bane of the actor's existence (when they fall in, they are torso high in water), it makes for a relevant adaptation of the play. To set Beckett's Waiting for Godot in the world of the Hurricane Katrina aftermath is the bold and clever choice of the Classical Theatre of Harlem. They are visited by a man floating in an inner-tube and his subservient companion - all the while waiting for Godot. They are sopping wet from the water, they have nothing to eat but turnips, parsnips and carrots, so they write a call for help on the roof of their building. Two shabbily dressed African-American men become increasingly desperate for help, as they wait on the roof of a dilapidated home surrounded by water, in a flood of immense proportions. Wendell Pierce & J Kyle Manzay In Waiting for Godot
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