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THEATRE OF THE ABSURD

The following article by Jerome P. Crabb was originally published on this web site on September 3,
2006.
The Theatre of the Absurd is a term coined by Hungarian-born critic Martin Esslin, who made it
the title of his 1962 book on the subject. The term refers to a particular type of play which first
became popular during the 1950s and 1960s and which presented on stage the philosophy articulated
by French philosopher Albert Camus in his 1942 essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, in which he defines the
human condition as basically meaningless. Camus argued that humanity had to resign itself to
recognizing that a fully satisfying rational explanation of the universe was beyond its reach; in that
sense, the world must ultimately be seen as absurd.
Esslin regarded the term Theatre of the Absurd merely as a "device" by which he meant to bring
attention to certain fundamental traits discernible in the works of a range of playwrights. The
playwrights loosely grouped under the label of the absurd attempt to convey their sense of
bewilderment, anxiety, and wonder in the face of an inexplicable universe. According to Esslin, the
five defining playwrights of the movement are Eugne Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, Arthur
Adamov, and Harold Pinter, although these writers were not always comfortable with the label and
sometimes preferred to use terms such as "Anti-Theater" or "New Theater". Other playwrights
associated with this type of theatre include Tom Stoppard, Arthur Kopit, Friedrich Drrenmatt,
Fernando Arrabal, Edward Albee, N.F. Simpson, Boris Vian, Peter Weiss, Vaclav Havel, and Jean
Tardieu.
Although the Theatre of the Absurd is often traced back to avant-garde experiments of the 1920s and
1930s, its roots, in actuality, date back much further. Absurd elements first made their appearance
shortly after the rise of Greek drama, in the wild humor and buffoonery of Old Comedy and the plays
of Aristophanes in particular. They were further developed in the late classical period by Lucian,
Petronius and Apuleius, in Menippean satire, a tradition of carnivalistic literature, depicting a world
upside down. The morality plays of the Middle Ages may be considered a precursor to the Theatre of
the Absurd, depicting everyman-type characters dealing with allegorical and sometimes existential
problems. This tradition would carry over into the Baroque allegorical drama of Elizabethan times,
when dramatists such as John Webster, Cyril Tourneur, Jakob Biederman and Calderon would
depict the world in mythological archetypes. During the nineteenth century, absurd elements may be
noted in certain plays by Ibsen and, more obviously, Strindberg, but the acknowledged predecessor
of what would come to be called the Theatre of the Absurd is Alfred Jarry's "monstrous puppet-play"
Ubu Roi (1896) which presents a mythical, grotesque figure, set amidst a world of archetypal images.
Ubu Roi is a caricature, a terrifying image of the animal nature of man and his cruelty. In the 1920s
and 1930s, the surrealists expanded on Jarrys experiments, basing much of their artistic theory on
the teachings of Freud and his emphasis on the role of the subconscious mind which they
acknowledged as a great, positive healing force. Their intention was to do away with art as a mere
imitation of surface reality, instead demanding that it should be more real than reality and deal with
essences rather than appearances. The Theatre of the Absurd was also anticipated in the dream
novels of James Joyce and Franz Kafka who created archetypes by delving into their own
subconscious and exploring the universal, collective significance of their own private obsessions.
Silent film and comedy, as well as the tradition of verbal nonsense in the early sound films of Laurel
and Hardy, W.C. Fields, and the Marx Brothers would also contribute to the development of the
Theatre of the Absurd, as did the verbal "nonsense" of Franois Rabelais, Lewis Carroll, Edward

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Lear, and Christian Morgernstern. But it would take a catastrophic world event to actually bring
about the birth of the new movement.
World War II was the catalyst that finally brought the Theatre of the Absurd to life. The global nature
of this conflict and the resulting trauma of living under threat of nuclear annihilation put into stark
perspective the essential precariousness of human life. Suddenly, one did not need to be an abstract
thinker in order to be able to reflect upon absurdity: the experience of absurdity became part of the
average person's daily existence. During this period, a prophet of the absurd appeared. Antonin
Artaud (1896-1948) rejected realism in the theatre, calling for a return to myth and magic and to the
exposure of the deepest conflicts within the human mind. He demanded a theatre that would
produce collective archetypes and create a modern mythology. It was no longer possible, he insisted,
to keep using traditional art forms and standards that had ceased being convincing and lost their
validity. Although he would not live to see its development, The Theatre of the Absurd is precisely the
new theatre that Artaud was dreaming of. It openly rebelled against conventional theatre. It was, as
Ionesco called it anti-theatre. It was surreal, illogical, conflictless and plotless. The dialogue often
seemed to be complete gibberish. And, not surprisingly, the publics first reaction to this new theatre
was incomprehension and rejection.
The most famous, and most controversial, absurdist play is probably Samuel Becketts Waiting for
Godot. The characters of the play are strange caricatures who have difficulty communicating the
simplest of concepts to one another as they bide their time awaiting the arrival of Godot. The
language they use is often ludicrous, and following the cyclical patter, the play seems to end in
precisely the same condition it began, with no real change having occurred. In fact, it is sometimes
referred to as the play where nothing happens. Its detractors count this a fatal flaw and often turn
red in the face fomenting on its inadequacies. It is mere gibberish, they cry, eyes nearly bulging out of
their head--a prank on the audience disguised as a play. The plays supporters, on the other hand,
describe it is an accurate parable on the human condition in which the more things change, the
more they are the same. Change, they argue, is only an illusion. In 1955, the famous character actor
Robert Morley predicted that the success of Waiting for Godot meant the end of theatre as we know
it. His generation may have gloomily accepted this prediction, but the younger generation embraced
it. They were ready for something newsomething that would move beyond the old stereotypes and
reflect their increasingly complex understanding of existence.
Whereas traditional theatre attempts to create a photographic representation of life as we see it, the
Theatre of the Absurd aims to create a ritual-like, mythological, archetypal, allegorical vision, closely
related to the world of dreams. The focal point of these dreams is often man's fundamental
bewilderment and confusion, stemming from the fact that he has no answers to the basic existential
questions: why we are alive, why we have to die, why there is injustice and suffering. Ionesco defined
the absurdist everyman as Cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots lost;
all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless. The Theatre of the Absurd, in a sense, attempts to
reestablish mans communion with the universe. Dr. Jan Culik writes, Absurd Theatre can be seen
as an attempt to restore the importance of myth and ritual to our age, by making man aware of the
ultimate realities of his condition, by instilling in him again the lost sense of cosmic wonder and
primeval anguish. The Absurd Theatre hopes to achieve this by shocking man out of an existence that
has become trite, mechanical and complacent. It is felt that there is mystical experience in
confronting the limits of human condition.

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One of the most important aspects of absurd drama is its distrust of language as a means of
communication. Language, it seems to say, has become nothing but a vehicle for conventionalized,
stereotyped, meaningless exchanges. Dr. Culik explains, Words failed to express the essence of
human experience, not being able to penetrate beyond its surface. The Theatre of the Absurd
constituted first and foremost an onslaught on language, showing it as a very unreliable and
insufficient tool of communication. Absurd drama uses conventionalised speech, clichs, slogans and
technical jargon, which it distorts, parodies and breaks down. By ridiculing conventionalised and
stereotyped speech patterns, the Theatre of the Absurd tries to make people aware of the possibility
of going beyond everyday speech conventions and communicating more authentically.
Absurd drama subverts logic. It relishes the unexpected and the logically impossible. According to
Sigmund Freud, there is a feeling of freedom we can enjoy when we are able to abandon the
straitjacket of logic. As Dr. Culik points out, Rationalist thought, like language, only deals with the
superficial aspects of things. Nonsense, on the other hand, opens up a glimpse of the infinite.
What, then, has become of this wonderful new theatrethis movement that produced some of the
most exciting and original dramatic works of the twentieth century? Conventional wisdom, perhaps,
suggests that the Theatre of the Absurd was a product of a very specific point in time and, because
that time has passed, it has gone the way of the dinosaur. In a revised edition of his seminal work,
Martin Esslin disagrees: Every artistic movement or style has at one time or another been the
prevailing fashion. It if was no more than that, it disappeared without a trace. If it had a genuine
content, if it contributed to an enlargement of human perception, if it created new modes of human
expression, if it opened up new areas of experience, however, it was bound to be absorbed into the
main stream of development. And this is what happened with the Theatre of the Absurd which, apart
from having been in fashion, undoubtedly was a genuine contribution to the permanent vocabulary
of dramatic expression. [it] is being absorbed into the mainstream of the tradition from which it
had never been entirely absent The playwrights of the post-Absurdist era have at their disposal,
then, a uniquely enriched vocabulary of dramatic technique. They can use these devices freely,
separately and in infinite variety of combinations with those bequeathed to them by other dramatic
conventions of the past. In a New York Times piece entitled Which Theatre is the Absurd One?,
Edward Albee agrees with Esslins final analysis, writing, For just as it is true that our response to
color and form was forever altered once the impressionist painters put their minds to canvas, it is
just as true that the playwrights of The Theatre of the Absurd have forever altered our response to the
theatre.
Essay on Waiting for Godot (by Michael Sinclair)
The purpose of human life is an unanswerable question. It seems impossible to find an answer
because we don't know where to begin looking or whom to ask. Existence, to us, seems to be
something imposed upon us by an unknown force. There is no apparent meaning to it, and yet we
suffer as a result of it. The world seems utterly chaotic. We therefore try to impose meaning on it
through pattern and fabricated purposes to distract ourselves from the fact that our situation is
hopelessly unfathomable. "Waiting for Godot" is a play that captures this feeling and view of the
world, and characterizes it with archetypes that symbolize humanity and its behaviour when faced
with this knowledge. According to the play, a human being's life is totally dependant on chance, and,
by extension, time is meaningless; therefore, a human's life is also meaningless, and the realization of
this drives humans to rely on nebulous, outside forces, which may be real or not, for order and
direction.

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The basic premise of the play is that chance is the underlying factor behind existence. Therefore
human life is determined by chance. This is established very early on, when Vladimir mentions the
parable of the two thieves from the Bible. "One of the thieves was saved. It's a reasonable percentage"
(Beckett, 8). The idea of "percentage" is important because this represents how the fate of humanity
is determined; it is random, and there is a percentage chance that a person will be saved or damned.
Vladimir continues by citing the disconcordance of the Gospels on the story of the two thieves. "And
yet...how is it - this is not boring you I hope - how is it that of the four Evangelists only one speaks of
a thief being saved. The four of them were there - or thereabouts - and only one speaks of a thief
being saved" (Beckett, 9). Beckett makes an important point with this example of how chance is
woven into even the most sacred of texts that is supposed to hold ultimate truth for humanity. All
four disciples of Chirst are supposed to have been present during his crucifixion and witnessed the
two thieves, crucified with Jesus, being saved or damned depending on their treatment of him in
these final hours. Of the four, only two report anything peculiar happening with the thieves. Of the
two that report it, only one says that a thief was saved while the other says that both were damned.
Thus, the percentages go from 100%, to 50%, to a 25% chance for salvation. This whole matter of
percentages symbolizes how chance is the determining factor of existence, and Beckett used the Bible
to prove this because that is the text that humanity has looked to for meaning for millenia. Even the
Bible reduces human life to a matter of chance. On any given day there is a certain percent chance
that one will be saved as opposed to damned, and that person is powerless to affect the decision. "The
fate of the thieves, one of whom was saved and the other damned according to the one of the four
accounts that everybody believes, becomes as the play progresses a symbol of the condition of man in
an unpredictable and arbitrary universe" (Webb, 32).
God, if he exists, contributes to the chaos by his silence. The very fact that God allows such an
arbitrary system to continue makes him an accomplice. The French philosopher Pascal noted the
arbitrariness of life and that the universe worked on the basis of percentages. He advocated using
such arbitrariness to one's advantage, including believing in God because, if he doesn't exist, nobody
would care in the end, but if he does, one was on the safe side all along, so one can't lose. It is the
same reasoning that Vladimir uses in his remark quoted above, "It's a reasonable percentage." But it
is God's silence throughout all this that causes the real hopelessness, and this is what makes "Waiting
for Godot" a tragedy amidst all the comical actions of its characters: the silent plea to God for
meaning, for answers, which symbolizes the plea of all humanity, and God's silence in response. "The
recourse to bookkeeping by the philosopher [Pascal] no less than the clownish tramp shows how
helpless we are with respect to God's silence" (Astro, 121). Either God does not exist, or he does not
care. Whichever is the case, chance and arbitrariness determine human life in the absence of divine
involvement.
The world of "Waiting for Godot" is one without any meaningful pattern, which symbolizes chaos as
the dominating force in the world. There is no orderly sequence of events. A tree which was barren
one day is covered with leaves the next. The two tramps return to the same place every day to wait for
Godot. No one can remember exactly what happened the day before. Night falls instantly, and Godot
never comes. The entire setting of the play is meant to demonstrate that time is based on chance, and
therefore human life is based on chance.
Time is meaningless as a direct result of chance being the underlying factor of existence. Hence there
is a cyclic, albeit indefinite, pattern to events in "Waiting for Godot." Vladimir and Estragon return to
the same place each day to wait for Godot and experience the same general events with variations

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each time. It is not known for how long in the past they have been doing this, or for how long they
will continue to do it, but since time is meaningless in this play, it is assumed that past, present, and
future mean nothing. Time, essentially is a mess. "One of the seemingly most stable of the patterns
that give shape to experience, and one of the most disturbing to see crumble, is that of time" (Webb,
34-35). The ramifications of this on human existence are symbolized by the difference between Pozzo
and Lucky in Act I and in Act II. Because time is based on chance and is therefore meaningless,
human life is treated arbitrarily and in an almost ruthless manner, and is also meaningless. In Act I
Pozzo is travelling to the market to sell Lucky, his slave. Pozzo is healthy as can be, and there seems
to be nothing wrong. Lucky used to be such a pleasant slave to have around, but he has become quite
annoying, and so Pozzo is going to get rid of him. This is their situation the first time they meet
Vladimir and Estragon. The next day, everything has changed. Pozzo is now blind, and Lucky is
mute. Pozzo has absolutely no recollection of the previous meeting, and even claims that Lucky has
always been mute even though just the day before he gave a long philosophical discourse when
commanded to "think." When asked by Vladimir when he became blind, Pozzo responds "I woke up
one fine day as blind as Fortune" (Beckett, 55). Vladimir, incredulous, continues asking him for
details. Pozzo responds to this (violently), "Don't question me! The blind have no notion of time. The
things of time are hidden from them too" (Beckett, 55). Pozzo's situation symbolizes the effects of
time on humans. The inherent meaninglessness of a world based on chance degenerates human life
into something that is worthless and can be toyed with by Fortune. Beckett uses this change in the
situation of Pozzo and Lucky to show that human life is meaningless because time is meaningless.
"Although a 'stream of time' doesn't exist any longer, the 'time material' is not petrified yet,...instead
of a moving stream, time here has become something like a stagnant mush" (Andres, 143).
Humans try to remain oblivious of their condition. Throughout the play, Vladimir and Estragon
remain stupidly cheerful, and seek distraction in pointless activities. In doing so, they act rather
comical, which gives the play its humorous element. "The positive attitude of the two tramps thus
amounts to a double negation: their inability to recognize the senselessness of their position"
(Andres, 143-144). Vladimir and Estragon try to distract themselves from the endless wait by arguing
over mundane topics, sleeping, chatting with Pozzo and Lucky (again over mundane topics), and
even contemplating suicide. All of this is an attempt to remain oblivious of the fact that they are
waiting for a vague figure, partly of their own invention, that will never come. They do not want to
realize that their lives are meaningless. This behavior symbolizes humanity's petty distractions.
Humans have nothing else to do but try to distract themselves from their situation. "...while, in the
case of Vladimir and Estragon, it is just the incessant attempt to make time pass which is so
characteristic, and which reflects the specific misery and absurdity of their life" (Andres, 147-148).
Vladimir and Estragon's attempts at distraction are attempts to make time pass, to draw them closer
to the time when Godot will arrive and solve all their problems. This is pure wishful thinking, but this
is all that they have to look forward to, even if the action is meaningless. The only alternative to this
is death, which the two contemplate but lack the courage and initiative to carry through. In the end,
the only recourse left to humans is to persist in meaningless action or perish. "Pozzo, after his vision
of the emptiness and futility of human life, revives his Lucky and cries, 'On!' though they have
nowhere to go and nothing to carry but sand" (Webb, 41).
To impose pattern and meaning on their world, humans will rely on nebulous outside forces for relief
and distraction from their predicament. This is the only thing that can keep them going. Thus, in the
play, Godot is symbolic of such an outside force, which seems to be silent and uncaring. Even so, he
is still a pattern, and he infuses the two desperate tramps with a purpose to their absurd lives. By
imposing pattern on chaos, Vladimir and Estragon achieve some degree of meaning. In this case, the

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pattern is waiting. Vladimir, in his philosophical soliloquy while contemplating whether or not to
help Pozzo in Act II, declares, "What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in
this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in this immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We
are waiting for Godot to come-" (Beckett, 51). An illusion of salvation is needed to cope with a
meaningless life. Godot is that illusion. Therefore we see that because of all the aforementioned
factors, that life is based on chance, that time is meaningless, that human life is meaningless,
humans are driven to invent or rely on such "Godots," otherwise they would perish. In essence,
"'Waiting for Godot' is the story of two vagabonds who impose on their slovenly wilderness an
illusory, but desperately defended, pattern: waiting" (Webb, 26).
It is never clear whether Godot is real or not, which is why he is referred to as an example of a
"nebulous force". In both acts, Vladimir and Estragon mistake or suspect Pozzo of being Godot. They
have never actually seen Godot, and would not be able to tell him apart from a street passerby. Their
only contact with him is his messenger boy that comes at the end of each day to inform them that
Godot will again not be coming, but will surely come tomorrow. The boy never remembers one day
from the next, another indication of the absence of a meaningful time sequence. At the end of the
second act, Vladimir, the more philosophical of the two, gets a glimpse of the truth: that they will
forever be waiting for Godot, that he is merely a distraction from their useless lives, and that he can
even predict, ironically, when the boy comes again, everything that the boy will say. It is at this point
that a great depression overcomes Vladimir at the realisation of the truth. It is the climax of the play
and its most tragic part. But Vladimir realizes that he is trapped, that he must persist in the illusion,
that he has no choice. This is the definition of "going on" for humanity. There is no point. But it is the
only option. "All of these characters go on, but in the old ruts, and only by retreating into patterns of
thought that have already been thoroughly discredited. In the universe of this play, 'on' leads
nowhere" (Webb, 41).
"Waiting for Godot" is all about how the world is based on chance. A world based on chance can have
no orderly time sequence, and thus time has no meaning. The extension, then, is that human life has
no meaning. Realizing this, humans will create distractions and diversions, in the form of patterns
and reliance on nebulous forces, to provide the purpose and meaning that is inherently lacking in
their lives. "Waiting for Godot" is the classical, archetypical presentation of this facet of human
existence.
The Circular Structure of Waiting for Godot
"But what does it all mean?" is the most frequent statement heard after one has seen or finished
reading a play from the Theater of the Absurd movement. Beckett's plays were among the earliest
and, therefore, created a great deal of confusion among the early critics.
No definite conclusion or resolution can ever be offered to Waiting for Godot because the play is
essentially circular and repetitive in nature. Once again, turn to the Dramatic Divisions section in
these Notes and observe that the structure of each act is exactly alike. A traditional play, in contrast,
has an introduction of' the characters and the exposition; then, there is a statement of the problem of
the play in relationship to its settings and characters. (In Waiting for Godot, we never know where
the play takes place, except that it is set on "a country road.") Furthermore, in a traditional play, the
characters are developed, and gradually we come to see the dramatist's world view; the play then
rises to a climax, and there is a conclusion. This type of development is called a linear development.
In the plays of the Theater of the Absurd, the structure is often exactly the opposite. We have,

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instead, a circular structure, and most aspects of this drama support this circular structure in one
way or another.
The setting is the same, and the time is the same in both acts. Each act begins early in the morning,
just as the tramps are awakening, and both acts close with the moon having risen. The action takes
place in exactly the same landscape a lonely, isolated road with one single tree. (In the second act,
there are some leaves on the tree, but from the viewpoint of the audience, the setting is exactly the
same.) We are never told where this road is located; all we know is that the action of the play unfolds
on this lonely road. Thus, from Act I to Act II, there is no difference in either the setting or in the
time and, thus, instead of a progression of time within an identifiable setting, we have a repetition in
the second act of the same things that we saw and heard in the first act.
More important than the repetition of setting and time, however, is the repetition of the actions. To
repeat, in addition to the basic structure of actions indicated earlier that is:
Vladimir and Estragon Alone
Arrival of Pozzo and Lucky
Vladimir and Estragon Alone
Arrival of Boy Messenger
Vladimir and Estragon Alone
there are many lesser actions that are repeated in both acts. At the beginning of each act, for
example, several identical concerns should be noted. Among these is the emphasis on Estragon's
boots. Also, too, Vladimir, when first noticing Estragon, uses virtually the same words: "So there you
are again" in Act I and "There you are again" in Act II. At the beginning of both acts, the first
discussion concerns a beating that Estragon received just prior to their meeting. At the beginning of
both acts, Vladimir and Estragon emphasize repeatedly that they are there to wait for Godot. In the
endings of both acts, Vladimir and Estragon discuss the possibility of hanging themselves, and in
both endings they decide to bring some good strong rope with them the next day so that they can
indeed hang themselves. In addition, both acts end with the same words, voiced differently:
ACT 1:
ESTRAGON: Well, shall we go?
VLADIMIR: Yes, let's go.
ACT II:
VLADIMIR: Well? Shall we go?
ESTRAGON: Yes, let's go.
And the stage directions following these lines are exactly the same in each case: "They do not move."

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With the arrival of Pozzo and Lucky in each act, we notice that even though their physical appearance
has theoretically changed, outwardly they seem the same; they are still tied together on an endless
journey to an unknown place to rendezvous with a nameless person.
Likewise, the Boy Messenger, while theoretically different, brings the exact same message: Mr. Godot
will not come today, but he will surely come tomorrow.
Vladimir's difficulties with urination and his suffering are discussed in each act as a contrast to the
suffering of Estragon because of' his boots. In addition, the subject of eating, involving carrots,
radishes, and turnips, becomes a central image in each act, and the tramps' involvement with hats,
their multiple insults, and their reconciling embraces these and many more lesser matters are
found repeatedly in both acts.
Finally, and most important, there are the larger concepts: first, the suffering of the tramps; second,
their attempts, however futile, to pass time; third, their attempts to part, and, ultimately, their
incessant waiting for Godot all these make the two acts clearly repetitive, circular in structure, and
the fact that these repetitions are so obvious in the play is Beckett's manner of breaking away from
the traditional play and of asserting the uniqueness of his own circular structure.
Existentialism in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot
Jules Irving as Lucky, 1957
Samuel Becketts Waiting for Godot is a play that presents conflict between living by religious and
spiritual beliefs, and living by an existential philosophy, which asserts that it is up to the individual to
discover the meaning of life through personal experience in the earthly world. Support for this
assertion regarding the nature of the play is based on first hand interpretation of the dialogue and
action within the play itself as well as interpretation of quotes and ideas from Samuel Beckett and his
critics.
Gnther Ander clearly points out the notion that the protagonists in Becketts plays, including
Vladimir and Estragon in Waiting for Godot, reflect humanity in general. He states that the fabulae
personae whom Beckett selects as representative of todays mankind can only be clochards, creatures
excluded from the scheme of the world who have nothing to do any longer, because they do not have
anything to do with it (142). While the argument here holds with the notion of Vladimir and
Estragon representing humanity, it is necessary to note that Gnthers statement conflicts with this
discussion in that Vladimir and Estragon have everything to do with the world, merely lacking proper
perception of it.
Being more specific, it can be shown that Vladimir represents the portion of humanity who trusts in
religion and spiritual beliefs to guide them, and that Estragon represents the more ideal existentialist
portion of humanity who chooses to stop waiting and construct the meaning of life based on
experience in the tangible and physical world around them. The following is an example of dialogue
which supports this concept:
Vladimir: Lets wait and see what he says.
Estragon: Who?

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Vladimir: Godot.
Estragon: Good idea.
Vladimir: Lets wait till we know exactly how we stand.
Estragon: On the other hand it might be better to strike the iron before it freezes
(13).
Here we see that Vladimir is depending on Godot to tell him what he needs to know regarding his
existence, while Estragon asserts that they do not have the time to wait and that they should take
action on their own before it is too late. The metaphor of the cooling iron suggests that humanity
does not have enough time to wait for their spiritual ponderings to offer them enlightenment, that
the chance will pass, and their efforts will not take effect once it does. Therefore, it can be concluded
from this that Estragons suggestion that he and Vladimir make their own way now, before it is too
late, is the more ideal course of action advocated by the play. It is Estragon who follows the notion of
no longer waiting on religion for answers and going to the philosophy of existentialism.
There is another instance in the dialogue between Estragon and Vladimir that plays on the idea of
Vladimir as faithfully religious and Estragon as progressively humanistic:
Estragon: Charming spot. (He turns, advances to front, halts, facing auditorium.) Inspiring
prospects. (He turns to Vladimir.) Lets go:
Vladimir: We cant.
Estragon: Why not?
Vladimir: Were waiting for Godot.
Estragon: (despairingly). Ah! (8)
Once again, the existential philosophy of human experience in the physical world is what Estragon
seeks in his desire to leave for inspiring prospects, and the common human tendency to wait on
religion to offer answers is inherent in Vladimirs suggestion that they should stay and wait so that
they can be enlightened by Godot.
Those who interpret the play often expend too much effort attempting to infer the identity of Godot.
Even Beckett himself states that he has no idea who Godot is, and that he would have made it clear in
the play if he did (Ben-Zvi 141-142). Beckett makes the misdirection of people who seek to find out
who Godot is in his statement that the great success of Waiting For Godothas arisen from a
misunderstanding: critics and public alike were busy in allegorical or symbolic terms a play which
strove at all costs to avoid definition (Ben-Zvi 142). Becketts intention to not have the identity of
Godot pondered reflects the underlying notion in his play that people should stop pondering the
divine realm and focus on the human condition in physical existential terms. In this case, the entire
play reflects the situation humans find themselves in. Godot does not have an identity, according to

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Beckett, and it is therefore erroneous to try to find out who he is. Considering the way in which this
play reflects the human condition, one can also say that this means it is erroneous to ponder the
spiritual realm which is beyond our ability to comprehend.
H. Porter Abbott also makes note of the idea that it should not be the focus of interpretation of the
play to find out who Godot is. He notes that the audience should be most concerned with the fact that
the identity and nature of Godot is never revealed, rather than trying to figure out his identity. Abbott
states that concealment, or conversely blindness, is one of the things the play is very much about
(10). His use of the word blindness may be taken into consideration as it can be related to the
notion of blind faith. When the boy comes at the end of both acts and informs Vladimir that Godot is
going to come, Vladimir never questions him about how truthful he is being about his knowledge of
Godot. Vladimir only asks the boy superficial things about him, his brother, and his home life. The
following section of dialogue in the second act is an example of this:
Vladimir: What does he do, Mr. Godot? (Silence.) Do you hear me?
Boy: Yes Sir.
Vladimir: Well?
Boy: He does nothing, Sir.
Silence.
Vladimir: How is your brother?
Boy: Hes sick, Sir. (106)
Here we have Vladimir questioning the boy about Godot, but he never goes so far as to question the
reliability of the information the boy gives him, he just abruptly changes the subject when it would
make more sense to push on the subject when he was given the suspicious answer that Godot does
nothing. It seems from this that Beckett is making a statement about the case of blind faith in
religion. Christians, for example, are taught to never question the will of God, and take what they are
told about him for granted. Taking this notion as parallel with the case of Vladimir and the boy, it
seems to be suggested here that blind faith in religion is equally as pointless as Vladimirs blind faith
that Godot will come based on what the boy tells him.
Estragon and Vladimir
Near the beginning of the first act, Estragon attempts to tell Vladimir what he had dreamed after
waking from a nap. Vladimir forcefully insists that he keep it to himself, and then Estragon, gesturing
towards the universe, asks, This one is good enough for you? (10). The following silence sets this
quote apart from the rest of the line, it makes reference to the idea of looking to the supernatural, the
universe, as one way of pondering the meaning of life. Estragon would rather discuss his dream with
Vladimir, and maybe through interpretation, become more enlightened about the human condition.
It seems as though Beckett makes use of this to say that one should place more emphasis on personal
experience as a means of discovering profound truths rather than looking into a realm beyond
human comprehension and certainty. In other words, instead of looking into a universe he could

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never understand, Vladimir should listen to Estragons dream, focussing on human experience,
which is the only thing humans can really comprehend.
The relationship between Pozzo and Lucky in the first act is an example of the notion that humanity
must look away from religion as a source of the meaning of life. The dynamic between Pozzo and
Lucky in the first act reflects the relationship some people have with their religion. When Estragon
asks why Lucky does not relieve himself of the burden he carries once he and Pozzo have stopped to
rest, Pozzo replies that it is because Lucky is trying to impress him so that he will not be sold at the
fair. This reflects how a religious person would bear certain discomforts, such as rising early from
bed every Sunday to attend church, in order to please higher beings, eternal bliss in the afterlife.
In the second act, it is revealed that at least one of the bags carried by Lucky is filled with sand. A bag
of sand most often merely serves the purpose of providing extra weight, such as sandbags often used
to stave of flood waters, or to weigh down a hot air balloon. Given this, it can be concluded that the
unnecessary nature of the bag filled with sand that Lucky faithfully bears in order to impress his
master is symbolic of the unnecessary burden many religious people carry in their various rituals of
worship. One can conclude from this that the situation with Pozzo and Lucky is an attempt by
Beckett to express the notion that religious practices serve no actual practical purpose, that it is an
unnecessary weight keeping them from noticing the enlightenment the physical world has to offer.
It appears as though Beckett misspoke when questioned about Lucky. In response to being asked if
Lucky was named so because he does not have to wait for Godot like Vladimir and Estragon do, but
that he has his own Godot in Pozzo, Beckett stated, I suppose he is Lucky to have no more
expectations (Ben-Zvi 144). It is arguable, however, that Lucky actually does have expectations, and
that he is equally, if not more, insecure than the two tramps who remain forever waiting for Godot.
Lucky faces the uncertainty of whether he will end up remaining with Pozzo, or with a new master, in
much the same way that most religious people are always waiting to find out what they have waiting
for them in the afterlife.
David Hesla states in The Shape of Chaos that [Vladimir] and [Estragon] are largely spared the
burden of the past, for their memories are so defective that little of earlier time remains to them
(133). The protagonists of the play certainly lack burden from the past as a result of not retaining it,
but it is not the purpose of this discussion to suggest that it is more because they do not really have a
past to remember, rather than the fact that they can not remember. Vladimir and Estragon spend
their present finding ways to simply kill the time and focus their attention on the future, neglecting
their present. Without paying attention to the present, one will not have sufficient memory of it when
it becomes the past. From a spiritual perspective, this seems to say that people who spend their lives
working to ensure bliss in the afterlife and to understand the meaning of life should instead focus on
what they have before them so that they can make the most of life and not end up wasting it by
building themselves up to spiritual expectations which are far less certain than the pleasures
immediately obtainable in the physical world.
It can be concluded that the interpretation of instances from the dialogue, character dynamic, and
second party interpretation of Waiting for Godot by Samuel Becket offers much compelling evidence
in support of the notion that the play makes reference to existentialist philosophy as a more suitable
means of the pursuit for the meaning of life than is following religion or making spiritual inferences.

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Waiting for Godot as Bookers Seven Basic Plots Analysis: Tragedy Plot
Christopher Booker is a scholar who wrote that every story falls into one of seven basic plot
structures: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, the Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy,
Tragedy, and Rebirth. Shmoop explores which of these structures fits this story like Cinderellas
slipper.
Plot Type :
Vladimir and Estragon are tragic figures throughout the play, with seemingly no control over their
life situation. The difference between Bookers Tragedy plotline and the plotline of Waiting for Godot
is that no one dies and nothing really new happens. Things do go wrong, but thats not exclusive to
the start and end of the play; things have been going wrong for as long as we can imagine, and we
expect that they will continue to do so long after we leave the theater. So basically, we have the last
stage of the Booker Plot ("Destruction or Death Wish Stage") throughout the entire work. This makes
sense, since the concept of change or movement, in this case from one stage to another, would be
inconsistent with the stagnant world of Waiting for Godot.
Miscellaneous Critics on Waiting for Godot
Nothingness
Accordingly, any interpretation that purports to know who Godot is (or is not), whether he exists
whether he will ever come, whether he has ever come, or even whether he may have come without
being recognized (or possibly in disguise) is, if not demonstrably wrong, at least not demonstrably
right (Hutchings 27).
Although works of the theater of the absurd, particularly Becketts, are often comical, their
underlying premises are wholly serious: the epistemological principle of uncertainty and the inability
in the modern age to find a coherent system of meaning, order, or purpose by which to understand
our existence and by which to live (Hutchings 28).
Godots characters do not despair in the face of their situation, and this perseverance remains
constant throughout a body of work that, in the words of the citation awarding Beckett the Nobel
Prize for Literature in 1969 had transmuted the destitution of modern man into his exaltation (qtd.
in Bair 606) (Hutchings 30).
Many relate the play to existentialism:God is dead, life is absurd, existence precedes essence,
ennui is endemic to the human conditionIn many ways, such a reading is an evasion of the plays
complexity, a way of putting to rest the uncertainty of ones response to it (Collins 33).
The reader, like modern man, must not give into the arrogant presumption of certitude or the
debilitating despair of skepticism, but instead must live in uncertainty, poised, by the conditions of
our humanity and of the world in which we live, between certitude and skepticism, between
presumption and despair (Collins 36).
Tragicomedy is life enhancing because it tries to remind the audience of the real need to face
existence knowing the worst, which ultimately is liberation, with courage and humility of not taking
oneself or ones own pain too seriously, and to bear all lifes mysteries and uncertainties; and thus to

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make the most of what we have rather than to hanker after illusory certainties and rewards (Esslin,
Theater 47).
Act II. The next day. But is it really the next day? Or after? Or before? (Esslin, Presence 109).
Many details point out the absence of (meaninglessness of) traditional time, which is just one of
many ways that the play resists interpretation and meaning:
People misunderstand it on all sides, just as everyone does his own sorrow. Explanations flow in
from all quarters, each more pointless than the last (Esslin, Presence 110).

Some of the many attempts to impose meaning on the play include

Godot is God; 2.) Godot is the earthly ideal of a better social order; 3.) Godot is death; 4.) Godot is
silence; 5.) Godot is the inaccessible self (Esslin, Presence 110).
The play is, in fact, less than nothingsuggests REGRESSION: But here less than nothing happens.
It is as if we were watching a sort of regression beyond nothing. As always in Beckett, that little we
are given to begin with, and which we thought so meager at the time, soon decays under our very
eyesdisintegrates like Pozzo, who comes back bereft of sight, dragged by a Lucky, bereft of speech;
like the carrot, which as if by mockery has dwindled by the second act to a radish (Esslin Presence
111).
A character in a play usually does no more than play a part, as all those about us do who are trying
to shirk their own existence. But in Becketts play, the two tramps are on a stage with no part to
play. They must invent. They are free. (Esslin Presence 113).
The play does not tell a story; it examines a static situation
Nearly one quarter of the plays text is presented in the form of questions.
The play starts in medias res; begins in the midst of circular and pointless repetition.
Bert O. States applies to Becketts work the words Roland Bartes uses to describe Kafkas works:
The work authorizes thousands of equally plausible keyswhich is to say, it validates none (States
82).
There are no more significant solvable problems left unsolved; success in art is paid for by
insignificance, not to say outright plagiarism of earlier solutions. The artist-as-failure, if he is to exist
at all, is thus condemned to tread a narrow line between inauthentic success and truly irremediable
failure to produce anything at all The artist must fail to expressand he must fail to express his
failure to express (States 96).
Language

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The characters talk to each other but fail to communicate. Language (notably in the form of cliches)
is a form of reassurance but not real connection occurs; instead, language is noise to fill the void
created by the absence of meaningful human contact (Esslin, Theater 45).
Hence the presence of cliches in the discourse of the characters point toward the fact that in real
life most verbal exchanges are equally devoid of real communication (Esslin, Theater 45).
Repeated phrases, lines, and words and the fact that the second act repeats the first act are used to
signify the senseless repetition and relentless flow of time inherent to human existence (Esslin,
Theater 46).
Their talk is not so much anti-intellectual as it is counterintellectual; in the course of the play they
mock or demolish all of our myths of meaning, using language against itself so as to prevent it from
disguising their radical vulnerability. (Gilman 75).
Biblical Allusions
Also ask me about mythic parallels (Sisyphus and Tantalus); Chaplin, music hall, comic theater
Readers must guard against overanalyzing, and thereby overemphasizing, the Biblical allusions;
Becketts audience knew the Bible much better than do modern audiencesconnections and
associations were immediate and automatic for Becketts first audiences (Morrison 56).
Biblical allusions usually create humor by rapid shifts from divine to secular. The irreverence
implied by this quick shift from divine to secular shocks and surprises an informed audience,
eliciting a response of uneasy humor and so this sequence continues throughout (Morrison 57).
the juxtapositions and the rapidity of their presentation, not the subject, provide the
humor (Morrison 57).
The Biblical allusions accomplish 2 things: 1.) introduce the plays central theme: life is full of hellish
suffering; 2.) establishes a tone of cynical humor which is heard throughout the playmuch of the
cynical humor is based on seeing the Christian good news of salvation (the crucifixion) as bad
news (Only one thief was saved). The joke is on those who believe the good news (Morrison 58).
Hope deferred maketh the something sick, Vladimir says (8a), groping for Poverbs 13.12: Hope
deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life. Waiting for what does
not come indeed makes the heart (and feet and other body appendages) sick, and yet by a withered
tree, he and Estragon continue to wait (Morrison 58).
Didi and Gogo wait for a nonexistent hope and thus miss the real thing (the possibility of such a
real thing being suggested by the leaves appearing on the tree in act 2) (Morrison 58).
Becketts placement of the [50-50 chance of salvation motif through the two thieves] story early in
the play indicates his authorial concern with establishing immediately the theme of blighted hope,

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the tone of grieving despair. The comic mode of delivery underscores the tragicomedy nature of the
play (Morrison 59).
Other crucifixion references noted by Morrison (59)
Estragons crucifixion posture in the yoga exercise
Do you think God sees me?
The wind is in the reeds (John the Baptist preparing the way for Christ, Matt. 11.7-10)
Repetition of skull in Luckys monologue. Golgotha (the place of skulls, Matt. 27.33) is the location
where Christ and 2 thieves died
At end of Act I, the boy says he minds the goats but his brother minds the sheep. Godot beats only his
brotherthis situation is an ironic reversal of Matt.25.31-46in which the sheep go to the right and
are saved, while the goats go to the left and are damned (Morrison 61).
The psychological equivalents of salvation and damnation are hope and despair (Morrison 63).
Characters
In Act I, Didi usually speaks as mind, and Gogo speaks as body. Gogo eats, sleeps, and faces beating
while onstage, whereas Didi ponders spiritual salvation. Didi is the more eloquent of the two, with
Gogo sitting, leaning, limping, falling, i.e., seeking nearness to the ground. Gogo relies on
pantomime, while Didi leans toward rhetoric. Gogo wants Lucky to dance; Didi wants him to think.
Gogo stinks from his feet, Didi from his mouth. By act 2, the distinctions are blurred. Both Gogo and
Didi engage in mental and physical exercises to pass interminable time, and Didi seems to be more
agile in each domain. At the end of Act I, it is the active Gogo who asks, Well, shall we go? and the
meditative Didi who assents, Yes, lets go. Act 2 closes with the same lines, but the speakers are
reversed (Cohn 171).
Vladimir and Estragon are complimentary characters, as are Lucky and Pozzo.
Lucky taught Pozzo all the higher values of life (beauty, grace, truth); Lucky is mind and spirit
Pozzo is body and material; Intellect is subordinate to the appetites of the body, but they are tied
together (Esslin, Search 28).
Are Estragon and Vladimir superior to Pozzo and Lucky because the former have companionship,
compassion, and because the former have faith and hope?--or are the two couples equally absurd and
foolish? (Esslin, Search 30).
Lucky and Pozzo both benefit from the S & M, slave and master relationship because the relationship
gives them identity and purpose.

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In Godot we trust
As major new productions of Samuel Beckett's masterpiece Waiting for Godot open in Britain and on
Broadway, David Smith argues that the playwright's genius lay in creating a work that, more than
half a century on, still speaks to audiences, particularly in troubled times. Below, we speak to those
involved in some landmark productions
Waiting for Godot in New Orleans
Kyle Manzay, left, and Wendell Pierce perform Waiting for Godot in New Orleans
Two homeless old men wait in a bare road with a single tree. They are in no particular time or place nowhere and everywhere. Over two days they argue, get bored, clown around, repeat themselves,
contemplate suicide, and wait. They're waiting for the one who will never come. They're waiting for
Godot.
Vivian Mercier wrote in the Irish Times in 1956 that Samuel Beckett had "written a play in which
nothing happens, twice". Fifty-six years after its first performance, a watershed in world drama at the
Thtre de Babylone in Paris, nothing is still happening, twice - twice over. A new UK production of
Waiting for Godot, with Sir Ian McKellen as Estragon and Patrick Stewart as Vladimir, began a
national tour last week at the Malvern Festival Theatre and comes to the West End at the end of
April. And an American revival, with Nathan Lane and Bill Irwin as the time-torn tramps, opens next
month on Broadway.
Does theatre have a purpose when the world's financial system is in downturn, or rather recession, or
rather depression? There may be a play to come that will dissect the avarice, incompetence and
structural causes of the malaise. But often the most eloquent response is the most indirect. Man on
Wire, the Oscar-winning documentary about Philippe Petit's high-wire walk between New York's
Twin Towers in 1974, has been described as the most powerful 9/11 film yet made, precisely because
it does not mention 9/11.
Waiting for Godot seems to have a unique resonance during times of social and political crisis. As a
modernist existential meditation it can at first appear bleak: "They give birth astride of a grave," says
Pozzo. "The light gleams an instant, then it's night once more." But it is also funny and poetic, and
reveals humanity's talents for stoicism, companionship and keeping going.
Now it resonates again. Another towering human structure, capitalism, is trembling at the
foundations. Where there was certainty, there is now doubt and angst. Consumerism is on the
retreat, and the acquisition of material objects is a dead end. It is a moment for introspection and
stripping down to bare essentials. There is no drama more stripped down and essential than Godot,
whose mysteries Beckett refused to elucidate beyond "the laughter and the tears".
"It speaks to us in extremis," says Sean Mathias, director of the new UK production. "It's perfect
timing to do it here because many individuals are affected by what's happening in the world with
economics. The ground is shifting - for some dramatically, for others subtly - underneath our feet.
When you have to rearrange your outside life - people worrying about their lack of money and all
those kinds of things - it can't not have an effect on your inside life.
"This play speaks about what it is to be human at the most animal and spiritual level, so subtly that
it's like a big beautiful poem or piece of music. It doesn't lecture you, it's not polemic, it's not coarse.

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It's written so subtly that its lessons are almost biblical. It teaches you in a very gentle, intelligent
way and I think it's very relevant today."
Landmark productions of the play in the past half century have touched a nerve, or been designed as
a catalyst for change, in troubled societies all over the world. An all-black Godot in South Africa
implied a wait for the end of apartheid. Productions in California's San Quentin prison and in New
Orleans after Hurricane Katrina captured a restless present and yearning for renewal.
Susan Sontag's production in a Sarajevo under siege in 1993 was dubbed "Waiting for Clinton". She
said simply: "Beckett's play, written over 40 years ago, seems written for, and about, Sarajevo." There
were objections that its world view was too pessimistic for people already in despair. She replied that
not everyone, even in a war zone, craves popcorn escapism. "In Sarajevo, as anywhere else, there are
more than a few people who feel strengthened and consoled by having their sense of reality affirmed
and transfigured by art."
It might have been about Sarajevo, but it is about all the other places, too. Like Shakespeare, Godot is
a receptacle into which audiences can pour their preoccupations. Even a great work such as Arthur
Miller's The Crucible operates on two discernible levels: the literal story of the Salem witch trials, and
the metaphorical narrative of McCarthyism. But Beckett is taut and unyielding, his art abstract, his
conclusion opaque. An explanation would be an intrusion. Who, or what, is Godot? Whatever you
want it to be.
Sir Tom Stoppard, who first saw it in Bristol in the late 1950s, says: "The play is a universal metaphor
precisely because it wasn't designed as being a metaphor for anything in particular. The true subject
matter of Waiting for Godot is that it's about two tramps waiting for somebody. It's not the case that
the true subject matter is in the metaphor. Plays which are designed to be a metaphor for particular
correlatives have, I imagine, a very short lifespan. And then of course, there's the writing and the
humour.
"On one level Godot is like a long poem. Certainly it doesn't need to gain strength from its time and
place; it has its own strength. It's one of the few plays that really stand the test of time because there's
just nothing spare in it. When plays and books go off like fruit, the soft bits go first. Godot doesn't
really have any of those."
If it is like anything, Godot is a piece of music, reaching beyond the literal. Ronald Pickup, who
worked with Beckett in the 1970s ("it was like meeting Mandela or Gandhi"), recalls: "One of the
great discoveries I had working with him was his huge sense of rhythm. When we follow the sheer
music - because, along with everything else, he's a great poet - the play flows and eddies and twists
and turns and stops and sweeps quite beautifully."
Pickup, who plays Lucky in the new British production, adds: "It is simply so tuned to people in any
situation, whether in Sarajevo, or here in London in the recession, or in Zimbabwe with everything
that's going on there. There is so much to instantly relate to without even having to make an effort. It
leaps off the stage and is hugely emotional and compassionate and funny. You forget it's a metaphor
and just engage with it."
Beckett stayed true to his writing. A recurring theme emerges from those who worked him: he had no
wish to "explain" the metaphor, to clear up the mystery of Godot's identity. Sir Peter Hall, who

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directed the British premiere at the Arts Theatre in 1955, and has come back to the play four times
since, recalls: "He didn't operate like that. It was practicalities: he would say, Estragon and Vladimir
are like a married couple who've been together too long, they grow old day by day. If you said to Sam,
'What does that line mean?' he'd take the book and say, 'What does it say?' That's quite a good thing
for a dramatist to do.
"It's fairly obvious Godot can be anything you want. The great thing Beckett did was to say there is
such a thing as metaphorical theatre. Godot's a metaphor for religions, philosophy, belief, every kind
of thing you can think of, but it never arrives. We do die, however - this we know. But Sam didn't talk
about death, he didn't give lectures about what his play meant."
Director Anthony Page, currently rehearsing the new Broadway Godot, worked with Beckett when he
directed Britain's first uncensored version of the play in 1964. "Beckett didn't want to theorise," he
remembers. "He said he'd written the play without knowing what was going to come next. He just
wrote it, hearing these voices. He simply wanted to communicate the tone of the voice, what was
happening between the characters. He said that the laughter and the tears were all that mattered."
Neither of the new productions will attempt to spin a directorial interpretation around the crashes of
the City or Wall Street. For the text is the perfect statement of futility and redemption, of lying in the
gutter but looking at the stars, and audiences who seek the pattern of their own fears will find it for
themselves. A hundred years from now, the recession, it must be hoped, will be in the history books,
but Vladimir and Estragon will still be on a stage somewhere - still waiting for Godot.
Waiting for Godot is on tour until 25 April then at Theatre Royal Haymarket, London SW1, from 30
April. Details at waitingforgodottheplay.com
Sarajevo, 1993
Haris Pasovic
Produced Susan Sontag's staging in the besieged Sarajevo in 1993. Now director, East West Theatre
Company in Bosnia.
"Susan Sontag came to Sarajevo in 1993; her son David was reporting on the war, and she offered to
help in whatever way she could. Her decision to stage Waiting for Godot helped make history: the
production brought so much media attention to Sarajevo. Ultimately it was the journalists who saved
Sarajevo and the production of Waiting for Godot played a role in that. At one point the Washington
Post referred to the play as "Waiting for Clinton" and we were very happy with this connection.
"Susan initially wanted to stage Beckett's Happy Days, but when I explained that what we were doing
in Sarajevo was waiting, she decided on Waiting for Godot. At that time, people really thought it was
just a matter of time before somebody would rescue the city. It was outrageous that, at the end of the
20th century, on live TV, the world could see daily bombardments of the city, and do nothing. Every
single day we thought that our Godot would come and every night we understood that he wouldn't.
"The production featured three different couples playing Vladimir and Estragon, one all-female, one
all-male and one mixed. I liked this staging because it suggested that the couple's plight was
universal. People risked their lives coming five to 10km on foot to the theatre because there was no
public transport. We performed by candlelight because there was no electricity. Trying to find
candles was a major problem, as was the malnourishment of all of our actors. Susan stole rolls for

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them from her hotel breakfast. Yes, it was a struggle to put on the show, but it brought our message
to the world."
Imogen Carter
New Orleans, 2007
Wendell Pierce
Starred as Vladimir in the Classical Theatre of Harlem's outdoor production in New Orleans, 2007.
"My family lost everything to Hurricane Katrina, so when Christopher McElroen, the director of the
Classical Theatre of Harlem, asked if I was interested in performing in his production of Waiting for
Godot - set in post-Katrina New Orleans - I immediately accepted. Chris had seen a photograph of
two guys floating on a door during the floods which immediately reminded him of Gogo and Didi
[Estragon and Vladimir] and inspired him to direct Waiting for Godot
"Initially, we performed on a New York stage flooded by 15,000 gallons of water. Later, in
collaboration with the artist Paul Chan and Creative Time, we mounted the production outdoors in
New Orleans's ninth ward, surrounded by square miles of homes that had been destroyed. The show
was not only commemorative but also cathartic; it allowed us to grieve and to rebuild.
"People identified Godot as FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] in its lack of
response to the crisis. But we knew that Godot also symbolised our very existence which had
disappeared; our neighbourhood was no longer there, and we feared it would not return. After
Katrina, many survivors were asking 'Should I give up?' and Waiting for Godot offered the answer,
'We must go on.'
"I remember another pertinent line from the play: 'At this moment, at this place and time, all
mankind is us; let us do something while we have the chance.' The audience's reaction was stunned
silence - it was like a prayer recited on hallowed ground. A classic such as Waiting for Godot speaks
across generations directly to each audience member.
"We've lost an understanding of the role that the arts can play in our communities, but years from
now, when kids ask 'What did you do when we lost the city of New Orleans?', I'll feel proud to say I
performed a play that gave hope to thousands of people and honoured those we had lost." IC
France, 1991
Bruno Boussagol
Directed a rare all-female production for Brut de Bton Theatre Company at the Avignon festival in
1991
"I put Waiting for Godot on the same level as the Greek plays: it asks questions of theatre that are
extremely difficult to resolve. I chose only to use women in my 1991 production for Avignon because I
was convinced that female actresses introduce a range of acting possibilities that is broader than for
men. When putting on Waiting for Godot, you are very limited in your possibilities, because Beckett
specified how it should be played. So using just female actresses was an enormous step. Perhaps,
because the actor is a woman, there is an anomaly that is consistent with Beckett, a writer who is
completely unexpected and unpredictable. The Beckett estate said I didn't have the right to do it, so
then it became a question of principle. For me, no writer can impose his view on a production. So I

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launched a case to put the production on in Avignon and it was the first time in the history of the
French theatre that a director has had his production upheld by the law.
"The play was boycotted by the press, but the audience was full and no one walked out or
complained; there was lots of applause. I believe that I was truer to Beckett than lots of other
directors. I wanted to try to recapture the atmosphere of when Waiting for Godot was first put on.
There was a real shock, an intellectual shock to the public."
Ally Carnwath
San Quentin, 1962 & 63
Rick Cluchey
Played Vladimir in two productions in San Quentin Prison in 1962 and 1963. One of the pioneers of
theatre in prisons, after parole he worked with Beckett. Now runs Theatre in Prisons
In 1957, the San Francisco Actors Workshop put on Waiting for Godot in San Quentin Prison. It was
highly anticipated - the Actors Workshop was probably the greatest American theatre at the time. I
was an inmate, but I didn't see it: my sentence was life without parole for a violent armed robbery,
and they wouldn't unlock my cell after dark. My cell partner came back from seeing it; he kept me up
all night, everyone was high on the experience. I remember him saying "everyone was puzzled until
one guy came in with a rope around his neck and another guy whipping him and guess what his
name was? Lucky!" That spoke to everyone in the audience.
In 1962, we set up the San Quentin Drama Workshop and staged Waiting for Godot in a boxing ring.
Having the most wicked of sentences, I needed something to relieve the despair.
In prison, you're in limbo, trapped in the greyness of your own uniform of flesh. Waiting for Godot
resonates with the incarcerated because it depicts a vacant landscape and characters imprisoned
within themselves, but with great humour. Beckett approved of our work at San Quentin and we later
became great friends. He told me that, when he fled from the Gestapo with his wife in 1941, they
spent many nights in abandoned prisons, and I'm sure that influenced his work in some way: empty
prisons are full of ghosts. IC
South Africa, 1976
Benjy Francis
Directed and starred as Pozzo in an all-black production at the Market Theatre, Cape Town, 1976.
Now director of Afrika Cultural Centre, Johannesburg.
"Before I staged Waiting for Godot, Beckett had refused to let anyone perform his play in South
Africa because he was so opposed to apartheid. When I began work on the show, I became the
Market Theatre's first resident black director; until then, blacks couldn't work in the theatre and
mixed-race audiences were forbidden.
"I deliberately had an all-black cast, but I didn't intend to create the "Waiting for the end of apartheid
Godot": I wanted to depict my own struggle under apartheid. The desolation and boredom in Waiting
for Godot was reminiscent of what we were going through in the Seventies. Political movements were
banned and there was a conspiracy of silence that echoed in Beckett's work.

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"It was very difficult for me to walk on stage as Pozzo with a whip and my slave, Lucky, tethered to
me by ropes. That image was very provocative in South Africa, as it graphically depicted the masterservant relationship engendered by apartheid. In fact, I wasn't even supposed to play Pozzo, but the
original actor couldn't leave home following the Soweto riots of June 1976, which saw hundreds
killed and postponed the opening of my show by several weeks.
"Ultimately, Waiting for Godot is a very positive play, which talks about the resilience of human
beings. The tree was central to my staging; when it started to sprout leaves in act two, that sent a
powerful message to oppressed people - it suggested new life and resolution, an image of hope
against all the desolation. Every night, the show received standing ovations. Its impact was
monumental: Waiting for Godot provided a powerful metaphor of our struggle which allowed me to
get past the censor and speak to my people."
'When Beckett wrote Waiting for Godot he really didn't know a lot about theatre'
As Waiting for Godot turns 60, Beckett expert Anna McMullan explains why the play
still appeals.

Image 1 of 6
A scene from the first production of En Attendant Godot, Paris, 1953. Photo: Credit: Roger Pic
Copyright: Bibliotheque National de France?
7:00AM GMT 05 Jan 2013
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Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot premiered as En attendant Godot at a small theatre on the Left
Bank in Paris the Thtre de Babylone, sixty years ago, on January 5 1953.
It has since become one of the most important and best known plays of the 20th and 21st century
and has been performed countless times the world over. Samuel Beckett expert Anna McMullan
answers some questions about the seminal work:
What are the standout productions of Waiting for Godot?

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Obviously there's Roger Blin's first production in Paris. A number of French critics who watched it
said: "We've never seen anything like this, this is not theatre as we know it."
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Then of course the 24-year-old Peter Hall directed the English language premiere in 1955 just two
years later at the Arts Theatre in London. The theatre critic Kenneth Tynan said it changed the rules
of theatre.
British critics were initially more confused by it than the French, who had experienced a similar sort
of existential drama. But then Tynan and a number of other significant critics began to write about
the play. It's difficult to remember now, but nothing like it had been seen before. It began to change
the way people thought about theatre.
Beckett's own production was important too. He directed it at the Schiller Theatre in Berlin in 1975.
The production toured internationally and was described as a very balletic production. Beckett took
extraordinary care over the costume and design. It's seen as a definitive version, but that doesn't
mean we shouldn't reinterpret the play.
The relationship between the two characters Pozzo and Lucky can be very disturbing. It's an
oppressive and dependent relationship which has lead to the play being interpreted in a number of
situations of conflict throughout the world, such as South Africa and Sarajevo the latter by Susan
Sontag under the siege.

Programme for the first production of En Attendant Godot, Paris, 1953.

Did Beckett make many changes to the play after it was first performed?

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Yes, he made a lot of changes. When he first wrote it he really didn't know a lot about theatre. He had
been to theatre as a young man, and some of his friends were involved in theatre but really he learnt
the craft of theatre when he attended the rehearsals of his plays during the 1950s.
In the Sixties he began to direct his plays and that's when you begin to see Beckett really writing the
stage direction. He did rewrite parts of Godot and made many annotations when in rehearsals at the
Schiller theatre the originals of
which still exist.
A scene from the first production of En Attendant
Godot, Paris, 1953.

So have the scripts had all

those changes incorporated?
Not all of them actually and there is
an interesting debate about what
actually is the definitive script.
Faber and Faber have published a
series of notebooks Beckett kept
when he was directing a number of
his plays. In any case, substantially
the play is the same two tramps
still waiting for Godot but those
notebooks have a revised text and
anybody directing the play can look
at the published text and can consult those notebooks too.
But he was a very precise writer and director, and he really didn't like people to simply change the
text.
What are the standout Waiting for Godot performances?
There have been so many. The characters of Vladimir and Estragon have really appealed to a number
of acting partnerships, including Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson, Steve Martin and Robin
Williams. I saw the production from Johannesburg when it toured to London which starred Jon Kani
and Winston Ntshona, which were really wonderful performances.
Recently Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart took on the roles in the West End. Beckett is now almost
like Shakespeare: those roles are actors want to cut their teeth in.
The play has confounded many: what do you think it is trying to do?
We could talk forever about its meaning but I actually think, like Beckett, it is about is experiencing
the play. You go and take your seat in the theatre and you absorb what's happening. The characters
that are in front of you are waiting and while they are waiting we share the same time, the same space
and we watch the human beings as they interact on stage. We watch these moments of tenderness,
moments of cruelty and I think it really confronts us with the basic facts of human existence.