Ever feel as if life has no plot? No action? And a whole lot of time? Welcome to the world of Estragon and Vladimir. Better known as the tramps Gogo and Didi, and beloved as the main characters in Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot,” which The Assembled Players Company opened stylishly last weekend at The Playhouse in Belfast.

“Nothing to be done,” says Estragon in the first line of this play, which was first presented in Paris in 1953. Later, Estragon gives the position a new spin: “Don’t let’s do anything. It’s safer.” The next two and a half hours unfold in the same spirit of, well, not much of anything. And, for some, absolutely everything.

Which is why “Waiting for Godot” is the Irish playwright’s most famous work and, some think, the most important piece of drama since World War II. It falls into the category of tragicomedy as well as theater of the absurd, but however you define it, the writing grapples with humanity’s sense of fear, freedom, suicide, death and meaninglessness.

Sound gruesome enough? Indeed, it could be a night of dreadful depression. But, as Albert Camus said, there’s no such thing as nihilistic literature because the act of writing itself is an affirmation. And director Gardner Howes has a firm handle on the comic and satiric elements Beckett points out in this storyless story.

The five-man cast doesn’t let time get in the way of a sturdily thoughtful performance. This is an engaging, humorous, measured evening of theatrical examination pumped full of jibes, jitters and juxtapositions.

Michael Fletcher swiftly flexes his acting muscles with a Didi who is kindly optimistic and discerningly gentle. Peter Paton, who is equally limber, rightly goes the other direction with a pessimistic and droll Gogo.

Together, the two actors make a perfect couple — affectionate, devoted, and committed in their determination to meet Mr. Godot. Of course, Godot never shows up and perhaps doesn’t exist or — for at least some — may even be dead, but his identity has been the topic of many a graduate dissertation.

Instead of Godot, Pozzo and Lucky show up. Kent McKusick, as Pozzo, paints a grand and chilling portrait of a tyrannical master whose spurious good fortune runs out. John Purinton doesn’t reach the same depths in Lucky’s most frenetic moments, but he nails the subservience in the role. Max Graham, as Godot’s young servant boy, has a crystalline voice and uses it to fine effect.

Sharon Teel’s costumes and Phil Prince’s set-paintings honorably follow the exacting rules Beckett laid out — a country road, a tree, an evening. There’s no embellishment here. Just the muck of going along in life.

In the meantime, “Waiting for Godot” skips about in randomness, circular thinking, deadeningly ordinary routines and the suggestion that in the absence of any certainty about life, we can discard all outward and systematic signs for the hope of something greater. Even if he never shows up.

The Assembled Players Company will perform “Waiting for Godot” 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday through Oct. 31 at The Playhouse, 107 Church St. in Belfast. For information, call 338-3548.