The show where nothing happens, then nothing happens again
If you want to see the existential classic that is Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, you will only have four chances between Sept. 28 and Oct. 1. If you don’t make it to the Hyperion Players’ production at The Switch Theatre, 10029 E. 126th St, Fishers, there is no way to know how long you will have to wait for another chance.
The Reporter spoke to director Molly Bellner about how long she has been waiting to direct Godot and why she finds this fascinating enough to be worth it.
“Waiting for Godot was something that I have actually wanted to direct for the last 20 years,” Bellner said. “I was slated to direct it for another theater company in 2016, but my family and I ended up moving to another state in 2015, so unfortunately that production had to be canceled. I met Ian Hauer in summer of 2022 when we did Noblesville Shakespeare in the Park together. He was telling me about the Hyperion Players and the work that they were doing and their mission. It just sounded so great. He said they were looking for directors if I wanted to submit something.”
Thus, Bellner, at least, no longer had to wait for Godot.
“I submitted it to direct it for them and they selected it and here we are not quite a year later.”
Bellner said she loved the freedom and simplicity of this show.
“I think a lot of times, especially contemporary dramas, there’s a certain level of pretentiousness in a way,” Bellner said. “There’s kind of this assumed knowledge that people going to the theater have to have. They have to have a certain buy-in. They have to have this sort of enjoyment of the theater and a desire to be entertained in a specific way. One of the things that we as audience members enjoy about going to the theater is to be one step ahead of the action in the play. So that’s what creates dramatic tension, right? We know something that the characters don’t know, so we’re able to see where they’re headed and where their missteps might be happening and have that one-up on the characters.”
With Waiting for Godot it is the opposite. The audience cannot be a step ahead because there is nothing to be a step ahead of.
“This play is an opportunity for us as an audience to just unplug and really just be present in the moment with the action of the play because it is really, really simplistic in terms of the action,” Bellner said. “Two people waiting for some unknown entity. Two other people come into the action. They have some interaction. They leave and one other comes and delivers this message from the unknown entity. That’s what happens twice. Waiting for Godot is colloquially known as the play where nothing happens twice, first in act one, then in act two. It’s very simple action, and yet it gives us as the audience an opportunity to really be present in the moment and just enjoy what’s happening.”
Bellner told The Reporter she believes this is a play that will encourage conversation after the curtain closes.
“I definitely would encourage everyone to come see the show – and I’m sure that’s what everybody says – but this is just one of those shows where I feel like anyone, no matter what your background is, even if you’re not a theater person – come see it and sit with your friends afterwards and talk about it,” Bellner said. “It’s one of those shows where there’s just so much to pull out of it and so much discussion to be had afterward.”
Waiting for Godot is the first play of Hyperion’s second season. It will be followed by John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt: A Parable, Bess Wohl’s Grand Horizons, and local playwright Brad Staggs’ I Love My Zombie. Hyperion incorporated as a nonprofit in late 2021 and publicly launched in January 2022.
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