David Strathairn, the Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated actor, is stepping onto the Guthrie Theater's mainstage this week as Vladimir in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, a role that puts him beside a barren tree waiting endlessly for a man who never arrives. The production, opening Thursday in Minneapolis, marks the Guthrie's first staging of the tragicomedy in 53 years. It's a milestone that arrives with its own drama offstage, after a late cast change reshuffled who would be waiting alongside him.
A Half-Century Wait For Godot's Return
According to MPR News, Waiting for Godot was last performed at the Guthrie in 1973 under the theater's third artistic director, Michael Langham, making this month's opening the first time in 53 years that the play has returned to the Guthrie stage. Beckett wrote the piece in French in 1948 as En attendant Godot, ahead of its 1953 Paris premiere and 1956 Broadway debut, and later received the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature, according to the Guthrie Theater. Guthrie Artistic Director Joseph Haj has said he had wanted to direct the play for 20 years, noting that Beckett wrote it in the ashes of World War II, when old societal structures had collapsed, as reported by the Daily Planet.
Haj has served as the Guthrie's eighth artistic director since July 2015, succeeding 20-year leader Joe Dowling after previously heading North Carolina's PlayMakers Repertory Company, per American Theatre. Per the Minnesota Star Tribune, whose stage and arts coverage by writer Rohan Preston frames Strathairn's arrival, the actor is best known for roles in Sneakers, Nomadland, L.A. Confidential, The Bourne Ultimatum, and Lincoln — a résumé that made his Guthrie debut something of an event even before the casting shakeup.
A Late Cast Change Ahead Of Opening Night
The Guthrie later announced that Guthrie veteran Jimmy Kieffer would play Estragon opposite Strathairn's Vladimir. Kieffer has previously performed in the theater's productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Shakespeare's History Plays, the theater said. The switch created a new pairing for the September opening.
The full ensemble surrounding Strathairn and Kieffer includes William Sturdivant as Pozzo, Jim Lichtscheidl as Lucky, and J. Antonio Teodoro as A Boy, according to BroadwayWorld. The creative team also includes movement director Carl Flink and resident dramaturg Carla Steen, the outlet reported, rounding out the production.
From Circus Clown To Murrow To Beckett's Tramp
### From Screen Roles To Beckett's Tramp Strathairn's career has included dramatic screen and stage work. He is now taking on Vladimir in Beckett's play.
That range has carried Strathairn across a wide swath of American film. His credits include the 2005 film Good Night, and Good Luck, 1993's The Firm, 1992's Sneakers, and Chloé Zhao's Nomadland. He has received an Oscar nomination and won an Emmy. On television, he has appeared in The Sopranos.
Strathairn's stage work has run just as deep. TheaterMania identifies Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski as a production.
A Milestone Season For The Guthrie's Riverfront Home
The production is staged on the Guthrie's signature Wurtele Thrust Stage, one of the three stages in the theater's riverfront complex. The timing carries extra weight for the institution: the Guthrie commemorated the 20th anniversary of its Mississippi riverfront building this summer while launching Illuminate, an $80 million capital campaign to fund artistic excellence and facility updates, according to the theater's own program materials.
The revival also lands in the Guthrie's Downtown East neighborhood.
Waiting for Godot opens Thursday and runs through October 11 at the Guthrie Theater, 818 S. 2nd St. in Minneapolis. Tickets range from $27 to $91.
