Watching Waiting For Godot at Seven Stages, I laughed darkly to myself and thought about the current political climate in the United States when Estragon asks “We’ve lost our rights?” to which Vladimir answers “We got rid of them.” As I write now, I struggle with these words on a more straightforward and individual level. Are we aware when we are giving up our rights on a daily basis? Furthermore, what else are we giving up with them? There are so many problems facing this country: So much needs to be done. I get overwhelmed at times with just what I have to do as an individual to survive, when I add in trying to be a good citizen it gets really jumping. I am an artist and sometimes I feel like what I do is nothing more than a distraction for people, pretty things to own, or an hour or two not thinking about the laundry or whatever. Forget increasing the scope of theater and art, it just doesn’t matter in comparison to the problems we all face every day. Isn’t art escapist and trite in the face of death, hunger and destruction? Yes it is. But yet it can be more, it can matter, even on the level of survival.

We speak in more than one language every time that we utter a single sound or make a single mark. Some of our communication is the language that we know so well, logic and rational thought. A follows B leading to C. Politics is in this language. Plays are written with these same words. But in skilled hands (as was the case with this piece), other things can start to happen. There is another language, it is silent but we hear it nonetheless. It is shadow to the light of spoken words. It always exists but sometimes we are unaware of it or take it for granted. In today’s world of media overstimulation I think we often do not see it because the language of lights is just too bright. Flashing a staccato rhythm in our eyes to distract us from noticing the content of the shadows, or the noose around our necks. Manipulating that kind of language is easy. However if people notice the shadow of language, what is silent yet communicated, we can not be so easily manipulated. Shadows speak truth, the deeper silent language that we can not hear but yet know. Our subconscious is entwined with shadows, the world of dreams and spirit. It is so easy to stay entertained by what we are told, what we are used to looking at awake. It is easier but it is not the full extent of our capacity as humans. Perhaps we are frightened of what could happen if we all peered into the shadows and found ourselves within them, it could be chaos or it could be beautiful.

The shadows in this production act as almost another character. The staging is so minimal that we can not help but notice them. Shadows are split and distended stretching out to touch other shadows. The staging shows how we flow into each other through our shadows even when we do not reach out ourselves. The silent and the dark know no boundaries, only flow. Like Vladimir and Estragon, we are content not to look at our choices.

Spoken language can be our despair, our darkness, an obfuscation at worst. At best it is a net which binds our existence and gives it shape that we must break free of to find joy. But what do we do with that? I love Beckett’s answer. It is action, simply the act of doing things consciously. Vladimir and Estragon wait for Godot because they are afraid not to wait. They can not bear the responsibility of acting on their own, making a choice. The only character in the play who manages this is Lucky, despite his circumstances as a slave. He is bound to the will of another yet he acts consciously with every action. He breathes, lives, suffers and therefore can find joy as well. Beckett gives us proof in this version that Lucky is not just a dumb mute but rather a genius of that other language, nonsense and silence. Lucky’s ranting monologue about consumerism and destruction and tennis of all sorts left me speechless. In that moment, I experienced an eloquent display of that other, the language of shadow. Hope, peace, death, struggle, despair, sadness, resignation,and love. All at once. This is where we must live. Not the world of sound bites and Jennifer Aniston’s hair. In this place there is dignity and a happiness to be found. Consciously picking up our tedious burdens, accepting the fact that there is suffering and we cannot avoid it somehow transforms that very suffering bit by bit.

Lucky becomes completely mute by the end of the play. He finds song in the silence. He was commanded to “Dance, sing, think” and he did. Through suffering, tears, despair, we all have done this. But there is something else, feeling,longing, even love in the silence and rest in the shadows which we can return to over and over again while struggling with words. Thus words in art and in our lives can have a purpose which is full of dignity and hope as well as a continual struggle. Beckett points out so eloquently that language is the net we are caught in. Lucky struggles to escape it with his dance. Yet it is that other shadowy language encompassed in this play so eloquently which allows us to prevail. The dignity and truth found through that other language are more powerful than any sound bite ever could be. It is the mandate of the arts to open us to each other with both languages. Not just to distract or entertain but to allow us to feel. We are reminded that there is hope shadowing our despair, direction to be found in our confusion.

The only way that we as individuals can make a difference in the direction this country is moving is to be aware of the unspoken as well as the spoken meaning in every day. To read the shadow of language as well as the words themselves is a revolutionary act. The essence of freedom is found within our subconscious as well as in the rules we agree to live by, the words which contain our spirits. It is this silent shadow which encompasses the pursuit of happiness. For I believe that true happiness comes from a conscious responsibility of action and a willingness to not make sense always. Our highest achievements as humans are found in love. Love is not about making sense, but it is about responding to what we know in the dark.