A fresh look at Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett

by Samuel Beckett

Irish critic Vivian Mercier once said Samuel Beckett's absurdist work Waiting for Godot is a play "in which nothing happens, twice".

While this is true (nothing much happens in the first part, and the second act is remarkably similar to the first), how could such an "empty" play have garnered so much popularity and prestige over the years? So much that even the most esteemed actors (think Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in a recent London West End production) strive to play the sought-after parts of protagonists Estragon and Vladimir, and it has been transformed into various versions in different contexts, languages and countries.

The play, which marks its 60th anniversary this year (it was first performed in 1953 at the Théâtre de Babylone in Paris, where the Irish Beckett lived most of his life), uses silence, perfectly timed pauses and actions as much as - if not more than - speech itself. Wordplay and humour are borne out perfectly in the symbiotic relationship between Estragon and Vladimir, two tramps who wait endlessly near a tree on a country road for the elusive Godot to appear and offer them salvation.

They are "bored to death", and consider hanging themselves rather than continue waiting. They do not know if Godot will show up, they don't really know who he is or why they are waiting for him, and they struggle to find meaning or satisfaction in their repetitive, insignificant actions.