Aasif Mandvi, one of many leads in a brand new manufacturing of “Waiting for Godot” opening Thursday at L.A.’s Geffen Playhouse, is sitting on a sofa, recalling the dearth of roles for South Asian actors in 2003, when he performed a Taliban minister in Tony Kushner’s “Homebody/Kabul.” Mandvi’s co-star, Rainn Wilson, leans in.
“I thought you were Cuban!” Wilson deadpans.
Mandvi doesn’t miss a beat.
“I’ve told you a million times, I’m not Cuban,” he says with mock exasperation.
“You could play Cuban,” Wilson says.
“I’ve played Cuban, but I’m not Cuban,” Mandvi says.
“You should change your name, you really should,” Wilson persists. “Like, Antonio Mandivosa. You would work nonstop.”
Mandvi shakes his head, ribbing Wilson proper again.
“You’re so white right now,” he says.
They each snicker.
The 2 males are within the midst of recounting their early days in theater, when Wilson didn’t make greater than $17,000 yearly for years and Madvi toured Florida with a manufacturing of “Aladdin” for teenagers so younger they often peed their pants throughout the efficiency.
Aasif Mandvi photographed at Geffen Playhouse in October.
(Christina Home / Los Angeles Occasions)
For his first present in New York, Mandvi performed Hector in Shakespeare’s “Troilus and Cressida.” The manufacturing passed off in the back of a restaurant in Brooklyn, and the viewers consisted of possibly a dozen individuals. The mom of the man who performed Troilus made all of the costumes, Mandvi recalled, and so he got here out onstage with a cardboard sword with a crease in it.
“I’d been through drama school, I was a professional!” Mandvi says with fun. “It was the most insane thing. But this is to say that you just get onstage and do whatever you can to get seen, to build your résumé.”
It’s humorous to consider a time when both actor nonetheless wanted to construct his résumé. As two of modernist theater’s most iconic misfits — Vladimir (Wilson) and Estragon (Mandvi) — the actors will take the stage as bona fide stars. Though Wilson will all the time be related to the gullible and weaselly Dwight Schrute on NBC’s “The Office,” and Mandvi just lately received a loyal fan following for his portrayal of the science-minded skeptic Ben Shakir in “Evil” on Paramount+, each males consult with theater as their first — and largest — love.
“The entire reason I came to Los Angeles, and I am not even exaggerating one iota, is I knew that if I ever wanted to play Mercutio at the Public Theater, I was gonna need to be on a TV show,” Wilson says. “That’s just the reality of New York theater. They want to sell tickets.”
Rainn Wilson at Geffen Playhouse on Oct. 29, 2024.
(Christina Home / Los Angeles Occasions)
Wilson has stayed in L.A., however he nonetheless talks about going again with the aim of enjoying a few of these nice roles. Which is why he jumped on the probability to work on “Waiting for Godot.” He carried out a scene from the play in appearing class on the College of Washington in 1986 and ended up marrying his scene companion, author Vacation Reinhorn. Since then, he’d all the time dreamed of revisiting it. Mandvi additionally carried out “Godot” in appearing class way back, and the play has lengthy been on his bucket record.
The Geffen manufacturing is thrilling to each actors as a result of it’s offered in affiliation with the Irish theater firm Gare St Lazare Eire, which focuses on Beckett’s work.
“I’ve rarely been this challenged before as an actor,” Wilson says. “I played Hamlet in college, and I will say this is harder because everything is subject to interpretation.”
Wilson throws out an instance. He has a line in the midst of the play that reads, “In an instant, all will vanish and we’ll be alone once more in the midst of nothingness.”
“You could play that line with all the darkness and sincerity that you can muster, and it might really strike a chord in the the heart of the audience, or you could put a tiny little spin on it and get a big laugh,” he mentioned, enthusiastic about it for a second. “Yeah, and I’m not sure which way I’m even gonna go with that right now.”
Beckett wrote “Waiting for Godot” within the late Forties after World Warfare II, throughout which he was a part of the French Resistance. The play, which facilities on two ragtag characters ready in useless for a person named Godot, delivers a few of twentieth century theater’s most carefully parsed strains. It premiered in1953 on the Théâtre de Babylone in Paris and ever since has been endlessly analyzed and defined by lecturers, critics and theater lovers bent on uncovering its that means.
“It presumes the ultimate thesis, which is, we don’t know what we’re doing here, or why we’re here,” Mandvi says. “We just pass the time.”
Mandvi and Wilson are the identical age, 58, and shared the identical agent within the mid-’90s after they had been beginning out, however that they had by no means labored collectively.
“It just sounded like a blast, right?” Mandvi says. “ I was like, ‘Oh, I get to work with Rainn who I’ve always admired and watched and —’”
“Been oddly attracted to,” Wilson interrupts.
Mandvi nods slowly.
“Been oddly attracted to,” he repeats earlier than including emphatically, “which has really diminished.
“He’s one of the few people where the more you know him, the less you like him,” Mandvi continues. “The less you lust, I should say.”
“It’s true,” Wilson agrees.
Up subsequent, the actors recommend: A mashup of “The Office” and “Evil” the place the Dunder Mifflin Paper Co. is haunted. Hollywood producers, take observe.
‘Waiting for Godot’
The place: Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood
When: 8 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 3 and eight p.m. Saturday, 2 and seven p.m. Sunday; ends Dec. 15
Tickets: $49-$159
Info: (310) 208- 2028 or geffenplayhouse.org
Operating time: 2 hours, half-hour (one intermission)
