GODOT

NATHAN LANE: As a kid, I loved Godot because of the poetry and the humor and the strangeness, but then as you get older, it’s much more resonant. It’s not so absurdist. I realize that these are the conversations I have every day. “What do we do now?” “Let’s go, yes.” “Did that all happen yesterday?”

BILL IRWIN: Actors tend to be haunted by this play in one direction or the other. Either they have no desire ever to have anything to do with it, or it’s on your list of things that drive you.

NL: Yeah, the number of people who tell you “I hate that play,” or they threaten you with “I might come, because of you, but I don’t know.” Elaine Stritch said to me, “Oh, Nathan, if that play isn’t funny, it’s one long f***ing night in the theater.”

BI: Godot turned out to be—and Nathan agrees with me on this—the hardest thing either of us has done. And so I’m counting on my next play to be easier: I sure hope it will be. But then I also realize you can’t count on anything; I didn’t think Godot would be this hard.

NL: This one is a kind of marriage; they bicker like a couple, but they need each other. If you’re talking about chemistry, that’s just either there or it isn’t. We’ve been told we work well together. Bill is a very good partner to have in an existential wasteland.