Feeling Lucky: Michael Patrick Thornton on Acting of All Sorts in Waiting for Godot

Broadway veteran Michael Patrick Thornton won’t keep you waiting. Waiting for Godot's Lucky spoke to Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek about the new production directed by Jamie Lloyd and starring longtime friends and collaborators Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter as Estragon and Vladimir. On Broadway, Thornton has acquired quite the taste for classical theater. He played Lennox in the Sam Gold-directed production of Macbeth and Dr. Rank in Lloyd’s revival of A Doll's House. While it’s hardly the first time anyone’s spoken Beckett's famous lines onstage, they carry new meaning for Thornton, who is especially proud of the work and the heart that has gone into this version.

“We've had Beckett nerds who've seen the play 12 times,” Thornton said, “and what they come away with is that it's the most heartfelt production of the play.” He suspects this magnetism has something to do with the history and familiarity between the show’s two leads. “People are laughing and crying, and I think it's because of these two guys and their multi-generational friendship that is the bedrock for those two characters. There's a warm, glowing heart at the center of it that I don't think you usually find with this play. I think that's what people are responding to.”

Thornton is a man of range. As the co-founder and founding artistic director of The Gift Theatre in Chicago, he has a soft spot for new works. "I'm a new play geek and I love writers wholeheartedly," he said, noting that it’s nice to create art without expectations. Take, for instance, the play Obliteration, written and developed by Thornton's friend and close collaborator Andrew Hinderaker. “Most of what we did were Chicago, Midwest or world premiere plays. It's a great treat because they're not coming in with pre-existing thoughts of how you ought to do it. The problem is marketing because no one's ever heard of the goddamn thing.” 

This idea echoes something that Beckett observed about the character Lucky, who is billed in the text as a slave. "People asked Beckett, 'Why do you call him Lucky?' And he would say, 'I think he's lucky because he has no expectations,'" Thornton explained. "And then when people would freak out about, 'What is this play about?' he would just say, 'It's all symbiosis.' And symbiotic relationships can be equal, they can be asymmetric, but they're fluid. Those dynamics change.”

For Thornton, who uses a wheelchair, reframing the role of Lucky through the lens of disability provided an opportunity to interrogate and subvert audiences’ preconceived notions about the degree of agency available to this recognizable character. “I was not interested in a power dynamic that was completely asymmetrical from beginning to end,” Thornton said. He and co-star Brandon J. Dirden, who plays Pozzo, wanted to show that there’s more to their characters’ odd couple dynamic than meets the eye. “I think both Brandon and I were interested in an ever-shifting, codependent, ride-or-die kind of relationship that holds space for best friends, that holds space for lovers, for brothers, fathers and sons. I think it's every relationship at once.”

As for the play’s more existential questions, Thornton doesn’t profess to have all the answers. “I don't know if I'm solving the mysteries of the world,” he admitted, while still acknowledging, “I think it means a lot for disabled folks to see a wheelchair user on stage again on Broadway. I think it's upending what people have thought you can do with that character. And I think it's upending what people thought the Pozzo and Lucky relationship ought to be and how it ought to be done.”

Thornton and other wheelchair users, like Tony winner Ali Stroker and Wicked’s current Nessarose Jenna Bainbridge, have helped pave the way for greater accessibility on Broadway stages—motivating the implementation of ramps, stair lifts and other assistive technology, an invaluable practice that he thinks more professional theaters should adopt.

No matter the cosmic significance of this particular revival, Thornton says he is being fueled by the energy on stage every night. “It's a powerful small little chamber orchestra,” he said of the cast. “Whatever special magic is there, it's there. And sometimes when you win, you just kind of back away from the table and take your chips and go, 'thank you.'”

Watch the full interview below.

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