Waiting for Godot,

THERE is an apparent artlessness about the Gate Theatre's acclaimed production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot which will not deceive the aficionado who has seen numerous other efforts do - it less than justice. It is a honed down version which matches the author's literary asceticism, a virtually perfect realisation of his unique vision, and a wonderful piece of theatrical entertainment.

Director Walter Asmus frames his work with the stark design by Louis le Brocquy; no distracting frills or unwanted: embellishments there. Alan Burrett's lighting is an unobtrusive asset, mood moving from day through evening to night. The single tree signals its time change so minimally as to confuse the seasons.

Everyone and everything are waiting, eternally waiting for something which may never happen but, then again, it may. In either case, Godot, whoever and whatever he maybe will not be denied.

Of the handful of characters, the two tramps are closest to a communion of sorts with their oppressor? and in the front line of fire; they know there is nothing to be done. But they are all, as we all are, in the same antechamber.

Comparisons cease to be odious when they are employed to praise and no praise can over state the quality of the performances here. Barry McGovern and Johnny Murphy simply are the oddly named Vladimir and Estragon, reduced to diminutives in their pal talk.

Alan Stanford embodies the weak, doomed tyranny of Pozzo, and Stephen Brennan's usual leading man image disappears without trace into the crushed but menacing slave Lucky. Even the brief appearances of Diarmaid Lawlor's Boy are ineffably right.

This is the kind of production which entrances at first viewing and yields increasingly - more on subsequent ones.