Until I was twelve years old, I was educated in the French educational framework, where theatre meant classical French playwrights. Going to the theatre typically involved productions like The Sound of Music or My Fair Lady. Then, it was decided that I would transfer to school in England. So, at thirteen, I arrived at Westminster School. It was 1968, and my horizons expanded.
I attended a school production of Waiting for Godot performed in French in a small room with a little stage, and I was sitting at the back. Musically, I was pretty sophisticated – I was familiar with all the psychedelic music that had been emerging. I’d seen the Mothers of Invention. I’d seen lots and lots. But I was unaware there was stuff like this. I suddenly became aware that, just like in music, there was a completely different realm out there.
I don’t know how fluent the French was, but it wasn’t important what they were saying. It was just so conceptual and lively, with a kind of built-up suspense. And then, of course, it all explodes with Pozzo and Lucky’s arrival. The performance was staged by senior students, including a talented actor as Lucky. He was such a presence on stage. And he has to deliver that extraordinarily baroque monologue. In French. It was astonishing.
I was captivated by the notion that very little needed to occur, you know? That one thing happened and then it just goes on and then you have the young messenger at the end explaining that Godot won’t be coming today. It addressed time and action and narrative. Or the lack thereof.
We had been taught all these guidelines about what theatre was, but they were irrelevant here. I was deeply intrigued by how little was going on. Years afterward when I was producing music, I would try to turn them into something similar. When a fresh sound came in, I’d pull out other instruments and deliberately isolate them. So you clearly perceived that piano or that string instrument or whichever element. That sense of minimalism … I grasped that with Godot.
And yet it possesses a narrative. It truly does. I mean, they are fully realised characters. They are so alive, Vladimir and Estragon, in their love for each other, like an old married couple. I can’t say how my life would have evolved if I did not attend that show. To that institution and that play then. It just awakened something in me.
We were released on weekend days, and I began attending afternoon shows at the theatre venue every time there was a fresh staging. So you would experience works by modern playwrights. But the entry point to all of this was Godot.
I have minimal memory of the performance itself, except I know that it was consistently engaging – it had me at the edge of my seat. What I took away is that there don’t have to be any rules. It definitely influenced how I collaborated with the bands that I signed to Ze Records. I even had the musical group compose a track around “I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On”. I just instructed them: “I want a song with that name.”
I think it made me more fearless, too, because you should not fret about failure if you subscribe to Beckett’s worldview.
