The Playbill has posted a comprehensive list of all the reviews with links for Waiting for Godot. A few of them are below but see the list for more if you are interested.
Deadline posted Greg Evan’s review, “Waiting For Godot Broadway Review: Keanu Reeves & Alex Winter’s Existential Adventure”.
I can’t remember if the Bill & Ted movies were loaded with despair and suicidal ideation – I think not – but the stars of those movies, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter probably had the chops ready to go, as they demonstrate in Samuel Beckett’s post-war classic Waiting For Godot, directed by Jamie Lloyd and opening tonight at Broadway‘s Hudson Theatre.
The Hollywood Reporter posted David Rooney’s review, “Waiting for Godot Theater Review: Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter’s Beckett Spin Nails the Absurdist Tragicomedy but Underserves the Angst”.
Perhaps many Broadway theatergoers paying up to $500 a ticket to see beloved screen stars up close in a uniquely intimate play may come away feeling satisfied. Reeves and Winter certainly throw themselves into crowd-pleasing moments like a frenetic hat-swapping routine.
But New Yorkers who have seen more seasoned stage actors in the roles in more penetrating productions — Nathan Lane and Bill Irwin in 2009; Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart in 2013 — might be forgiven for feeling that Lloyd has given insufficient thought to any concept beyond the novelty casting of an iconic screen comedy duo.
AM Broadway posted Matt Windman’s review, “Waiting for Godot more excellent than bogus with Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter”.
The production seems intent on reaching new audiences and making the play feel more accessible to people who know “Bill & Ted” and “The Matrix” rather than Beckett. Some will be hooked, and others will surely find the repetition unbearable and slip out at intermission. “Godot” has always divided audiences.
Reeves and Winter may not save the world this time, but their endless adventure in Beckett’s wasteland is a strange, curious, and surprisingly affecting experiment.
Culture Sauce posted Thom Geier’s review, “Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter wrestle with existence in a Gen X Waiting for Godot“. He gave it 3/5 stars.
While Reeves and Winter lack the acting reach of recent Estragons and Vladimirs on the New York stage, they bring a certain disillusionment that seems distinctly Gen X in its sensibility.
There’s nothing flashy or showy to Reeves and Winter’s performances; they project an aloofness that reminded me of latchkey kids who strayed too far before darkness set and can no longer find their way back home.
The Daily Beast posted Tim Teeman’s review, “Bill & Ted’s Broadway Adventure: Keanu Reeves Stars in Waiting for Godot“.
Reeves and Winter make you feel it when the men embrace—as if one is holding on to the life raft embodied by the other—and when they quietly care for each other, strange day after strange day. If this is stunt casting, then it is stunt casting with a sweetened depth. Their Didi and Gogo are a plausible flipside to Bill and Ted, for whom loyalty and friendship were the bedrock of their heroism. Whether Beckett intended it or not, and no matter the forces of nihilism assailing them, you feel this Didi and Gogo are going to be excellent to each other for eternity.
Cititour.com posted their review of Waiting for Godot.
Here, the pair’s well-meaning performances, combined with Beckett’s ultra-dense text, end up being far more successful at periodically boring us than delighting us. Unfortunately, Reeves serves up an almost recessive turn – for better and worse, there’s no hint he’s a movie megastar. Meanwhile, the far more animated Winter often leans too heavily on the seriousness of the text. Neither actor, sadly, is most triumphant.