Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot (/ˈɡɒdoʊ/ GOD-oh[1]) is a play by Irish playwright Samuel Beckett in which two characters, Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo), engage in a variety of discussions and encounters while awaiting the titular Godot, who never arrives.[2] Waiting for Godot is Beckett's reworking of his own original French-language play, En attendant Godot, and is subtitled (in English only) "a tragicomedy in two acts".[3]
Waiting for Godot
The original French text was composed between 9 October 1948 and 29 January 1949.[4] The premiere, directed by Roger Blin, was on 5 January 1953 at the Théâtre de Babylone, Paris. The English-language version premiered in London in 1955. In a poll conducted by the British Royal National Theatre in 1998/99, it was voted the "most significant English-language play of the 20th century".[5][6][7]
Plot[edit]
Act I[edit]
The play opens with two bedraggled acquaintances, Vladimir and Estragon, meeting by a leafless tree. Estragon notifies Vladimir of his most recent troubles: he spent the previous night lying in a ditch and received a beating from a number of anonymous assailants. The duo discuss a variety of issues at length, none of any apparent significance, and it is finally revealed that they are awaiting a man named Godot. They are not certain if they have ever met Godot, nor if he will even arrive.
Subsequently, an imperious traveller named Pozzo, along with his silent slave Lucky, arrives and pauses to converse with Vladimir and Estragon. Lucky is bound by a rope held by Pozzo, who forces Lucky to carry his heavy bags and physically punishes him if he deems Lucky's movements too lethargic. Pozzo states that he is on the way to the market, at which he intends to sell Lucky for profit. Following Pozzo's command "Think!", the otherwise mute Lucky performs a sudden dance and monologue: a torrent of academic-sounding phrases mixed with pure nonsense.[8] Pozzo and Lucky soon depart, leaving the bewildered Estragon and Vladimir to continue their wait for the absent Godot.
Eventually, a boy shows up and explains to Vladimir and Estragon that he is a messenger from Godot, and that Godot will not be arriving tonight, but surely tomorrow. Vladimir asks for descriptions of Godot, receiving only extremely brief or vague answers from the boy, who soon exits. Vladimir and Estragon then announce that they will also leave, but they remain onstage without moving.
Act II[edit]
Vladimir and Estragon are again waiting near the tree, which has grown a number of leaves since it was last seen in Act 1. Both men are still awaiting Godot. Lucky and Pozzo eventually reappear, but not as they were previously. Pozzo has become blind and Lucky is now fully mute. Pozzo cannot recall ever having met Vladimir and Estragon, who themselves cannot agree on when they last saw the travellers. Lucky and Pozzo exit shortly after their spirited encounter, leaving Vladimir and Estragon to go on waiting.
Soon after, the boy reappears to report that Godot will not be coming. The boy states that he has not met Vladimir and Estragon before and he is not the same boy who talked to Vladimir yesterday, which causes Vladimir to burst into a rage at the child, demanding that the boy remember him the next day so as to avoid repeating this encounter once more. After the boy exits, Vladimir and Estragon consider suicide, but they do not have a rope with which to hang themselves. They decide to leave and return the day after with a rope, but again they merely remain motionless as the scene fades to black.
Setting[edit]
There is only one scene throughout both acts. Two men are waiting on a country road by a tree. The men are of unspecified origin, though it is clear that they are not English by nationality since they refer to currency as francs, and tell derisive jokes about the English – and in English-language productions the pair are traditionally played with Irish accents. The script calls for Estragon to sit on a low mound but in practice – as in Beckett's own 1975 German production – this is usually a stone. In the first act the tree is bare. In the second, a few leaves have appeared despite the script specifying that it is the next day. The minimal description calls to mind "the idea of the lieu vague, a location which should not be particularised".[59]
Other clues about the location can be found in the dialogue. In Act I, Vladimir turns toward the auditorium and describes it as a bog. In Act II, Vladimir again motions to the auditorium and notes that there is "Not a soul in sight." When Estragon rushes toward the back of the stage in Act II, Vladimir scolds him, saying that "There's no way out there." Also in Act II, Vladimir comments that their surroundings look nothing like the Macon country, and Estragon states that he's lived his whole life "Here! In the Cackon country!"
Alan Schneider once suggested putting the play on in the round – Pozzo has been described as a ringmaster[60] – but Beckett dissuaded him: "I don't in my ignorance agree with the round and feel Godot needs a very closed box." He even contemplated at one point having a "faint shadow of bars on stage floor" but, in the end, decided against this level of what he called "explicitation".[61] In Beckett's 1975 Schiller Theater production in Berlin, there are times when Didi and Gogo appear to bounce off something "like birds trapped in the strands of [an invisible] net", in James Knowlson's description.
Adaptations[edit]
Beckett received numerous requests to adapt Waiting for Godot for film and television.[206] The author, however, resisted these offers, except for occasional approval out of friendship or sympathy for the person making the request. This was the case when he agreed to some televised productions in his lifetime (including a 1961 American telecast with Zero Mostel as Estragon and Burgess Meredith as Vladimir that New York Times theatre critic Alvin Klein describes as having "left critics bewildered and is now a classic").[127] When Keep Films made Beckett an offer to film an adaptation in which Peter O'Toole would feature, Beckett tersely told his French publisher to advise them: "I do not want a film of Godot."[207] The BBC broadcast a television production of Waiting for Godot on 26 June 1961 (see above), a version for radio having already been transmitted on 25 April 1960. Beckett watched the programme with a few close friends in Peter Woodthorpe's Chelsea flat. He was unhappy with what he saw. "My play", he said, "wasn't written for this box. My play was written for small men locked in a big space. Here you're all too big for the place."[208] One analysis argued that Beckett's opposition to alterations and creative adaptations stem from his abiding concern with audience reaction rather than proprietary rights over a text being performed.[209]
On the other hand, theatrical adaptations have had more success. For instance, Andre Engel adapted the play in 1979 and was produced in Strasbourg. In this performance, the two main characters were fragmented into 10 characters. The first four involved Gogo, Didi, Lucky, and Pozzo while the rest were divided into three pairs: two tramps, a pair of grim heterosexuals, and a bride raped by her groom.[210] Each of these embodied some characteristics of Estragon and Vladimir. A similar approach was employed by Tamiya Kuriyama who directed his own adaptation of the play in Tokyo. These interpretations, which only used extracts from the dialogues of the original, focused on the minds of the urban-dwellers today, who are considered to be no longer individuals but one of the many or of the whole, which turned such individuals into machines.[210]
A web series adaptation titled While Waiting for Godot was also produced at New York University in 2013, setting the story among the modern-day New York homeless. Directed by Rudi Azank, the English script was based on Beckett's original French manuscript of En attendant Godot (the new title being an alternate translation of the French) prior to censorship from British publishing houses in the 1950s, as well as adaptation to the stage. Season 1 of the web series won Best Cinematography at the 2014 Rome Web Awards. Season 2 was released in Spring 2014 on the show's official website whilewaitingforgodot.com.[211]
Place in Beckett's work[edit]
Although not his favourite among his plays, Waiting for Godot was the work which brought Beckett fame and financial stability and as such it always held a special place in his affections. "When the manuscript and rare books dealer, Henry Wenning, asked him if he could sell the original French manuscript for him, Beckett replied: 'Rightly or wrongly have decided not to let Godot go yet. Neither sentimental nor financial, probably peak of market now and never such an offer. Can't explain.'"[212]
Sources
