Waiting for Godot at Victory Gardens Theater - Biograph

Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended

"...I don't know that this production will become great. I can guess, I can hope, I can speculate. All I know for sure is that right now, Neumann Jr. and Saad are doing some incredible heavy lifting under the circumstances."

Stage and Cinema - Highly Recommended

"...“Birth was the death of him”: Terse to the point of cruelty, Samuel Beckett devours the human experience in six words, repeatedly juxtaposing graves with cradles. Waiting for Godot, his minimalist masterpiece, takes nearly three hours for the same result. But Beckett succeeds in his life-long task — to “find the form that will accommodate the mess” of life on earth."

Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended

"...“Waiting for Godot” is funny, maybe. It’s sad, maybe. It’s not totally dark but is far from light. Above all, it’s deep, that is, when you get past the shallowness inherent in all the waiting. Nothing happens, yet everything happens. True to the original, this production plays it straight and literally by the book. If you like heady plays, this show is for you."

Chicago Theatre Review - Highly Recommended

"...Dennis Začek, longtime artistic director of Chicago's Victory Gardens Theater, returns to the venue he once led as the producer and director of this solid staging of Beckett's seminal script."

Third Coast Review - Highly Recommended

"...Dennis Začek, the veteran Chicago director, produces and directs this excellent production at Victory Gardens' Richard Christiansen Theater. Even though one writer described Godot as having a "gloomy magic," Beckett lards his script with plenty of laugh lines and vaudeville bits that counteract the angst of Didi and Gogo and their eternal wait. Truth be told, there are also a number of quasi-religious references, which might be considered ironic. (I prefer to think they are.) As in references to "our savior," the Bible, and thieves being saved. Every time I see this play, I notice something new. (The play is always performed exactly as Beckett wrote it, according to the requirements of licensing the work.)"

Picture This Post - Recommended

"...If you have been, are, and always will be a Beckett fan, this production of WAITING FOR GODOT will not disappoint. The script is carried off well -- the actors and all other aspects of the production remain true to its originally produced form."

NewCity Chicago - Not Recommended

"...If the on-book performance were just a glitch in an otherwise sound staging, it would hardly be worth mentioning. But it’s symptomatic of deeper problems of concept and execution, which render this two-and-a-half-hour production a soporific disappointment both for Beckett aficionados and those sampling the Irish writer’s iconic high-modernist play for the first time."