A ‘Godot’ That Hears Beckett’s Silent Scream

Samuel Beckett devotees should relish “Waiting for Godot” at the Raven Playhouse. Director J. Wienckowski and a youthful cast invest this silent-movie approach to Beckett’s absurdist benchmark with notable devotion.

An archon of the avant-garde since its 1953 Paris premiere at the Theatre de Babylone, “Godot” is perhaps the 20th century’s most influential play, seminally affecting Edward Albee and Harold Pinter, among countless others.

The action concerns vagrants Estragon (Eric Carter, costumed as Stan Laurel) and Vladimir (Brian Johnson, his Oliver Hardy), who inhabit a stark allegorical landscape displaying a single symbolist tree.

Proactive Vladimir struggles to maintain equilibrium, while Estragon constantly threatens departure, even though the pair’s interdependence is self-evident. They await the title figure, whose metaphoric implications, like everything else at hand, present vast analytic fodder for the thesis-minded.

Similar bleak comic obliqueness attends interloping Pozzo (the Chaplin-garbed Jay P. Africa) and his menial Lucky (Ari Radousky, morphing Buster Keaton and Harry Langdon). Neither their Act 1 intrusion nor Act 2 return--the domineering Pozzo now blind and Lucky a catatonic mute--provide explanations, only catalytic conversion.

Synoptically sealing the ideology is Godot’s alleged messenger (Sarah Tarlow, clad as a Dead End Kid), whose hollow assurances lead to the realization that Godot is never coming, if indeed he even exists.

Wienckowski reverently observes Beckett’s specifics like a conductor reading a classic score. However, the concept is more decorative than illuminating, the zaniness and pathos operating separately and the overly measured wordless passages approaching somnolence.

Carter devours the asides and slapstick, generally suggesting John Cusack’s manic puppeteer in “Being John Malkovich,” especially his decibel levels.

This upends Johnson’s calculated subtlety, with results more technically impressive than profound or moving.

Africa possesses striking technique and insufficient mileage; the physically eloquent Radousky’s outpouring of sophistry is undercut by iffy enunciation; and Tarlow is wanly laconic. While the ambitious effort is admirable, it ultimately seems moored in American College Theatre Festival territory.

“Waiting for Godot,” Raven Playhouse, 5233 N. Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. Fridays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends Sept. 1. $15. (818) 906-8446. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.