Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot: A Reference Guide 0313308799, 9780313308796

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Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot

SAMUEL BECKETT’S WAITING FOR GODOT A Reference Guide

William Hutchings

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hutchings, William. Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot : a reference guide / William Hutchings. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–313–30879–9 Contents: Summary—Texts—Meaning—Intellectual contexts—Dramatic art— Performance. 1. Beckett, Samuel, 1906– En attendant Godot. I. Title. PQ2603.E378E648 2005 842.914—dc22 2005001481 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2005 by William Hutchings All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2005001481 ISBN: 0–313–30879–9 First published in 2005 Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com Printed in the United States of America

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For Guy Davenport

CONTENTS

Introduction

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Chapter 1: Summary Chapter 2: Texts Chapter 3: Meaning Chapter 4: Intellectual Contexts Chapter 5: Dramatic Art Chapter 6: Performance

1 13 23 47 69 81

Bibliographical Essay

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Index

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INTRODUCTION

Over a half century ago, theatergoers and readers began waiting for Godot to come. In theaters throughout the world and in reading venues too numerous to count, they also began arguing about the play’s meaning, its strangeness, and the ways in which it confounds conventional expectations even as it fascinates, perplexes, and provokes. Sometimes the arguments take place in theater lobbies after a performance or on the way home after the play; sometimes they occur in classrooms, and sometimes they occur in print. This volume is a chronicle of those arguments and ongoing discussions—and a guide for the perplexed. Since the beginnings of Western drama in ancient Greece in the fifth century b.c., three plays have generated more diverse interpretations, raised more profound questions, captivated more audiences’ imaginations, and provoked more arguments than any others—or even, quite possibly, more than all others combined. The first, Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (also known as Oedipus Tyrannus or Oedipus the King), was written in the fifth century b.c. in ancient Athens; the second, William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, was first performed in London circa 1602; the third is Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, which had its premiere in a very small theater in Paris in 1953. Each of these plays has a seemingly endless ability to fascinate—and to perplex—its audiences, in part because its plot raises questions for which there can be no easy answers or final resolutions: Did Oedipus have free will in taking the actions that he did, even when he unknowingly killed his father? Or was his fate entirely determined or predestined by the gods? Is Prince Hamlet mad, or is he not? Is the ghost that he sees real, or is it

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not? If real, is it telling the truth, or is it not? And, most strangely of all, why are these two tramps on this desolate landscape waiting beside a tree for a Mr. Godot whom they might not recognize and who does not—and may not ever—arrive? Why isn’t anything much happening here? What’s it meant to mean? One reason for the three plays’ continuing appeal is that each challenges its audiences and its readers to think about profound questions about the nature of the world in which we live; about the meaning of life itself; and, especially, about how we know what we think we know about the universe, about other people, and even about ourselves. Each in its own way embodies issues that have vexed philosophers and theologians for years. Oedipus Rex asks us to consider whether gods or humans are fundamentally in control of the world; whether we all have destinies that are inexorable, unavoidable, and preordained; and whether there are circumstances in which we can—or even should—try to defy the will of the gods and the edicts that they issue. Hamlet, similarly, questions the kind of universe we live in—whether there is an afterlife with rewards and punishments, whether justice can be found in this world or the next (if at all), and whether we can ever know with certainty the truth of our situations and then act with moral responsibility when and if we think we do. Waiting for Godot, in many ways, simply extends those uncertainties: Why are we here? Are we alone in an uncaring universe, or not? What are we to do while we are here? How can we know? And, ultimately, what does it matter? However profound the questions that they raise and however disturbing the answers that they provoke, these plays are fundamentally not philosophical treatises or sermons. The source of their perennial popular appeal lies, emphatically, elsewhere: despite quite dissimilar styles, they share a uniquely theatrical eloquence, a poetry that is embodied in performance, conveyed not only through language but through action and gesture as well. Their characters puzzle and even disconcert their audiences, always eluding even our best efforts to determine exactly who they are, why they do what they do, and what their experience ultimately means. However well we think we know the characters, each new production of the play or each rereading of the text offers new “portals of discovery” about their motives and actions, often revealing facets of their personality and motivation through details and images that have somehow gone unnoticed or been underappreciated heretofore. Weighty and somber considerations of the plays’ themes should not be allowed to overshadow the fact that they are also, in quite dissimilar ways, forms of entertainment: Oedipus, though originally presented as part of a religious festival, is basically the invention of the “whodunit” as a literary form (even though the original audi-

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ences knew the solution to the mystery before they went into the theater); Hamlet, amid its treacherous intrigue and multiple murders, features much verbal wit and bawdy humor as well; Waiting for Godot, though startling in its uneventfulness and seemingly bleak in its depiction of the world, has strong links to vaudeville and silent film comedies as well—and often in performance provokes laughter in ways that readers (especially first-time) seldom expect. For actors and directors, therefore, all three of these plays provide challenges that are at once incredibly daunting and utterly exhilarating. Although the lines can be carefully studied and flawlessly memorized, the roles can never fully be mastered and the characters can never finally be defined. While scholars can, at leisure, explicate ever-subtler nuances as they celebrate the endless ambivalences and ambiguities within the texts, performers must make countless practical decisions that will, individually and cumulatively, shape their particular rendition of the play, their unique presentation (and interpretation) of events that occurred in ancient Thebes, at Elsinore in Denmark, or beside the tree that marks the otherwisebarren landscape of Waiting for Godot. Yet because each such choice of the actors and directors necessarily precludes any number of others and, inevitably, shapes an interpretation, no performance is or ever can be definitive, capturing the sole essence of the play (if such a thing ever existed). Furthermore, as every actor and stage crew member knows, one day’s performance will not be exactly the same as the next: some audiences are more responsive and attentive than others; some days are more “high energy” than others; and many productions mature over the course of the days or weeks after they open. Accordingly, those who have seen Waiting for Godot have seen only one day’s performance of one company’s interpretation, whatever its strengths, quirks, or weaknesses might be; those who have seen it repeatedly always find new angles of interpretation, points with which to agree or disagree. While the foregoing is true of every play, of course, the minimalism of Beckett’s style and the stark simplicity of his stage set and other specifications have encouraged an extraordinarily wide variety of “creative” alterations, most of which Beckett (and his estate) adamantly opposed. A number of these have been discussed in the “Performance” chapter of this volume. For readers of the play, quite a different set of challenges presents itself. Without the presence of performers and a director to interpret and deliver the lines, the reader’s imagination must provide for itself from the details (which are quite spare) that Beckett’s text affords. Because much of Beckett’s dialogue is quite terse and much of the characters’ conversation may initially seem banal or inconsequential, standard “protocols

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of reading” seem not to apply. As with his earlier novels (Murphy, Watt, Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable), Beckett subverted readers’ conventional expectations regarding such basic elements of fiction as plot, character, and style. This book is intended for those who seek an overview of the play, a guide to the ongoing critical discussion, or a history of the play in performance. Its presumed readership might include students in college or high school, theatergoers who have just seen their first performance of it, theater practitioners who are preparing to act in it or direct it, or teachers who are preparing to present it in their classrooms for the first time. It is not primarily intended for those who are already Beckett aficionados, nor for those seeking only the latest innovative but arcane or esoteric interpretation. Accordingly, the book presents a summary of the play’s plot (which some early reviewers considered nonexistent), a description of the various texts and editions that are available, a discussion of the play’s intellectual context, an essay on the play’s meaning, an overview of its dramatic art, a history of its performances worldwide from 1953 through 2004, and a bibliographical essay that can guide further reading and research. The edition of Waiting for Godot that is cited herein is the one that has been published by Grove Press since 1954, the only version of the text readily available in the United States. Because its pages are numbered consecutively on the left-hand pages only, citations refer to pages “a” (left) or “b” (right) for easier identification and ease in locating sources. Other editions, which differ substantially from the Grove Press version, are discussed in the chapter on the play’s texts. Because a recorded performance can also be considered a “text” and studied as closely and critically as the words on a page, this chapter also includes a discussion of as many recorded versions of the play as possible, including phonograph records, videotapes, audio CDs, and DVDs. The diversity of interpretations that these recorded performances embody is worthy of a book-length study of its own. My discussion of the play’s intellectual contexts first assesses the long controversy over the play’s many overtly Christian allusions and its equally clear existential themes. Although this debate preoccupied the first few decades of Beckett criticism more pervasively than in more recent years, it remains of interest not only for those who seek to historicize the play within its own time period but also for those who, as relative newcomers to the play, wonder what all the fuss is or was about. Many other philosophers and theologians are also relevant to Beckett’s work as well, of course, both from the twentieth century and from earlier times. Although

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it is not feasible to explain all of their doctrines in detail and then discuss Beckett’s use, adaptation, or parody of them, I have sought at least to identify briefly what the issues are and direct readers to authorities who have written about such topics in detail. The chapter on dramatic art defines a number of key terms that are central to any understanding of Waiting for Godot as a theatrical (as distinct from a literary) text: minimalism, the theater of the absurd, Irish “tramp comedy,” and tragicomedy. The chapter also includes a detailed discussion of the influence of the silent film comedies of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton as well as the early sound films of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Widely available now on DVD and videotape, these films will provide invaluable aid to actors, directors, teachers, students, and general readers of Beckett’s play. The rhythms of the dialogue of Laurel and Hardy, those bowler-hatted lifelong companions exactly like Vladimir and Estragon, are unmistakably present in Waiting for Godot, as is the stone-faced stoicism of Keaton and the resiliency of Chaplin’s “little tramp,” known in French as “Charlot.” Other major influences on the play’s style include the now-lost artistries of the music halls, the uniquely European-style clowns, the small-scale circus, and vaudeville-style “knockabout” comedy, all of which are described here. The production history contained in this book is the most comprehensive and up-to-date available anywhere. The goal has been to describe significant productions worldwide from 1953 to the present, including whenever possible the most complete original cast listings available. In many cases these have been surprisingly difficult to track down, particularly in identifying the actors playing the boy; that effort has not always been successful, but the listings offered here are more complete than ever before. In some instances, previously published cast lists have been corrected here, in cases where later casts in long-running productions were misidentified as the original ones. The Beckett Circle, the semiannual newsletter of the Samuel Beckett Society, has been an especially valuable resource; its chronicle of Beckett productions worldwide is unmatched anywhere, even though its reviews’ cast listings and credits are in many cases not as detailed as they could and should have been. Nevertheless, I am very grateful to its writers, reviewers, and editors, and I am pleased to bring their insights and closely observed details to a wider audience. Wherever possible, additional details and cast lists have been obtained through Internet searches for newspaper reviews and theater companies’ Web sites. Even Beckett aficionados and graduate students doing research in the underdeveloped and underappreciated subject of production history will, I trust, find substantial new and useful information here.

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The bibliography chapter is, to borrow a phrase from Ezra Pound, “a Baedeker to a continent.” Its goal is to survey the major critical writings about Waiting for Godot from 1953 to the present; for reasons of practicality and the scope of the present volume, the discussion has been limited to book-length studies written in English. Production reviews and significant scholarly articles have been included only if they have been reprinted in collections of such materials, of which, fortunately, a goodly number of exceptionally thorough and well-edited ones are available. For these, I have included the authors and titles of each item that pertains to Waiting for Godot; inclusive pagination from the book in which it appears has also been included, so that readers of this book can assess the length of each contribution and can know the exact title of each essay before locating the volume in question. The essay is divided into nine parts: biographies; letters, interviews, and related biographical materials; collections of essays and reviews; critical studies; performance studies; Beckett and literary theory; pedagogical approaches; periodicals devoted to Beckett’s works; and bibliographies. While I have sought to make the chapter as international as possible, it has been necessary to exclude the extensive and excellent body of works on Beckett that have been published in French and German, as well as the tens of thousands of journal articles, essays, and reviews that have not (or not yet) been reprinted elsewhere. Neither have I ventured to discuss the various Web sites that are related to Waiting for Godot in particular and Beckett in general, numbering as they do into the millions. Obviously, I have also necessarily excluded the many excellent books about Beckett that deal with his prose works or his later writings but do not focus on (and in some cases do not mention) Waiting for Godot. The entries in the bibliography chapter are primarily descriptive and reportorial rather than evaluative. In order to represent the diversity of critical approaches to the play and the panoply of insights that the various writers have brought to the play, I have sought to avoid privileging one approach, interpretation, or methodology over others. Within the subchapters, books are listed in approximate chronological order, though volumes that can be juxtaposed in particularly useful ways may appear out of sequence. For authors who have written more than one book on Beckett—including such scholar-superstars as Ruby Cohn, Hugh Kenner, and Katharine Worth—I have discussed their books together in order to provide my readers a concise overview of these stellar lifetime achievements. Insofar as possible, given the constraints of chapter space and copyright allowances, I have sought to allow the authors to speak for themselves; accordingly, I have preferred to include direct quotation rather than summary or paraphrase when presenting their theses and particular insights.

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Although I have tried to make the selections as judicious and representative as possible, I am well aware that every act of inclusion is also, by definition, an act of exclusion; every book listed herein thus holds treasures that await each reader’s discovery, and I hope that the extracts provided here will provide useful clues to the wealth contained within. In selecting the quotations to use, I have sought to include each book’s most representative statement of thesis, whether identified as such or not. Beyond that, I have tended to favor each author’s most provocative, innovative, original, astute, or—in a very few cases—outrageous statements concerning crucial issues about Waiting for Godot. These may or may not be the sentences that the respective authors would themselves have chosen to be represented by, but I trust that they fairly characterize the content of their books and that they will, I hope, stimulate my readers’ curiosity and encourage them to read the entire volumes for themselves. I am sincerely grateful to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, its School of Arts and Humanities, and its Department of English for the sabbatical leave during which much of the research for this book was accomplished. I also thank George Butler, my editor at Greenwood Press, not only for having invited me to undertake this project but also for his support, encouragement, and, especially, his patience as it grew well beyond our original conception of it. I am grateful to the people at Apex Publishing for their painstaking attention to the many details of this manuscript. I also thank Connie Angelo for the skilled preparation of the book’s index. I extend especially heartfelt thanks to Charlie Parks, my research assistant for this volume. He is an intrepid researcher, an assiduous fact-checker, an astute copy editor, and an extraordinary scholar who routinely accomplishes even the seemingly impossible with disconcerting ease, grace, and speed. I am also indebted to Ken Davis and Grayley Herren for the many valuable suggestions that they provided as readers of this manuscript. This book has benefited much from their generosity, their thoughtfulness, and their expertise. Andrew Sofer contributed fine details about a number of productions of Waiting for Godot, and Doug Phillips proved himself ever ready to help locate even the most hard-to-find books, often on very short notice. For much of my initial appreciation, enjoyment, and understanding of Samuel Beckett’s writings, I am grateful to Carl Fields, my office-mate and fellow graduate student at the University of Kentucky years ago. During the intervals between student conferences and otherwise unoccupied

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office hours, we passed the time by reading aloud from Beckett’s novels and plays, finding there much laughter as well as vital perspective about the graduate school experience (“I must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on…”). Often, he proved, the best instruction takes place outside the classroom—and sometimes unawares. We would never then have imagined that I would later write a book about Waiting for Godot, but in many ways it would not have happened without him. Finally, I am especially grateful to Guy Davenport: my mentor, my dissertation director, and my professional role model. His writings have provided constant inspiration, and his counsel has been invariably wise. This book is dedicated to him.

Chapter 1

SUMMARY

One evening, while sitting on a low mound near a bare tree beside a country road, Estragon tries unsuccessfully to remove his boot. When his friend Vladimir enters, he gives up pulling the boot, remarking that there is “nothing to be done.” Vladimir says he is reluctantly beginning to agree, although not everything has been tried yet. He broods briefly about having “resumed the struggle.” He is, he says, glad to see Estragon again, having believed him permanently gone. He suggests a celebratory embrace but Estragon irritably declines. He says he spent the night in a ditch nearby—and “they” beat him again, though he does not know whether it was the usual people who do so. Vladimir insists that, without his presence throughout the years, Estragon would be a small accumulation of bones, but the latter seems unconcerned. Cheerfully, Vladimir then asks, “What’s the good of losing heart now?” since they did not do so long ago, in the nineties, when they were “respectable” and together atop the Eiffel Tower. Now they would not be allowed there. Estragon feebly resumes pulling the boot and asks for help, complaining that it hurts and reminding Vladimir to rebutton his trouser fly. Vladimir muses on “the last moment,” finding relief in such a prospect even as it appalls him. There is, he reiterates, nothing to be done. Vladimir examines his hat; Estragon removes the boot. Vladimir finds an image of all mankind in the way that Estragon “blam[es] on his boots the faults of his feet.” Deep in thought, Vladimir remarks that one of the two thieves crucified alongside Christ was saved, which is “a reasonable percentage.” He

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considers that they themselves might repent but is unsure of how to do so or what to repent for. Estragon suggests that they repent having been born. His subsequent laughter quickly ends as he grabs his crotch in laughterinduced pain. Asked if he has read the Bible, Estragon remembers the colors of the maps, especially the Dead Sea, where he promised to honeymoon. He was a poet, he remarks, gesturing toward the rags he wears. Vladimir recounts the story of the crucified thieves but wonders why only one gospel writer mentions that one was saved; two mention no thieves, and the fourth claims both berated him. Estragon wonders what they were being saved from; Vladimir replies that it is from death, though Estragon thought from hell. Vladimir ponders that the fourth account is the only one that is generally known; “people are bloody ignorant apes,” Estragon concludes. After scanning the horizon, Estragon proposes that they leave their current spot, but Vladimir reminds him that they are to await Godot by the tree. Although they see no others, they are unsure whether it is this tree, whether it is willow, whether it is alive, or whether it may not be a bush or shrub instead. Godot did not say for certain that he would come; if not, they will wait again daily. They are uncertain that they waited here the day before, that they have been in this place before, or that they were to meet on this evening, on a Saturday. They are also unsure of the day of the week. It is therefore possible that Godot came yesterday and they missed him; if so, he will probably not come again. Estragon feels he may be mistaken that they were in this place the day before, but he falls asleep as Vladimir paces, considering the problem. When Estragon is awakened by Vladimir’s shouting at him, the latter emphatically does not want to listen to his recounted nightmares. Estragon resentfully claims that he sometimes believes that they should part, but Vladimir asserts that his companion would not go far. Estragon then begins a story about an Englishman visiting a brothel, but Vladimir stops him. Vladimir exits the stage as Estragon watches, but he soon returns and, after some mutual silences, asks forgiveness. Eventually they embrace, though Estragon complains that Vladimir stinks from garlic. Pondering what to do while waiting, they consider hanging themselves, which would also produce an erection. Since the bough may not be strong enough, Vladimir suggests that Estragon, who weighs less, should go first. Estragon, however, believes that he should not go first, because of the fact that he is lighter than Vladimir. When Vladimir cannot figure out why that would matter, Estragon explains with difficulty that if the bough broke with Didi going second, he would be left alone. If, however, it hangs the heavier man, it will hang the lighter one. Vladimir is uncertain that he is

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heavier; Estragon is unsure too. They decide not to do anything, which is safer. They will continue to await Godot, consider his offer, and accept or reject it. Estragon wonders what they asked him for in “a kind of prayer,” but their indefinite supplication received a noncommittal answer, depending on Godot consulting friends, family, books, bank balances, and others. They think such an answer must be normal. They wait in silence. Estragon wonders whether they have no more rights; Vladimir suppresses a laugh, noting that such has been prohibited and that they “got rid of” their rights. From their slouches they suddenly become rigid, listening but hearing nothing. Vladimir thought he might have heard Godot, perhaps shouting, possibly at his horse. It was, he concludes, more likely wind stirring reeds. When Estragon says he is hungry, Vladimir offers him a carrot but pulls a turnip from his pocket. When Estragon protests, Vladimir finds a carrot, saying it is the last. Estragon takes up his previously disregarded question of whether they are “tied” to Godot. There is “no question about it,” Vladimir says, though he is even unsure of Godot’s name. Estragon finds that things get worse, but Vladimir asserts that he grows accustomed to the muck as time goes on. Again, nothing can be done about it. After a terrible cry from offstage, two strangers enter. The first, Lucky, is bound by a long rope tied around his neck. He carries a picnic basket, a folding stool, a heavy bag, and a greatcoat. His master, Pozzo, cracks a whip, urging him on. Lucky crosses the stage, but Pozzo stops when he sees Vladimir and Estragon and yanks the rope, pulling Lucky back, causing him to fall. Pozzo warns that Lucky can be a danger to strangers. Estragon wonders if this is Godot. Pozzo introduces himself, asking whether they recognize his name; Estragon claims they are not from nearby. Pozzo notes that they are of the same species, apparently, and thus “made in God’s image.” Pozzo asks who Godot is, intrigued by their having mistaken his identity. Although Estragon refers to Godot’s being an acquaintance of theirs, he admits that they would not recognize him if they saw him. Pozzo claims that they are on his (Pozzo’s) land, though the road is open to everyone, disgraceful as he finds that fact to be. Again he jerks Lucky’s rope, addressing him as “pig” and “hog,” ordering his every move. Lucky holds the whip in his mouth to help Pozzo put on his coat. Then he picks up his burdens again as Pozzo chats about his journey and his need for company. As he orders Lucky to prepare the stool on which Pozzo will sit, the master proposes to linger with Vladimir and Estragon before going on. From the picnic basket he takes out a bottle of wine and a piece of chicken, which he eats voraciously. Vladimir and Estragon inspect the motionless Lucky, who seems to be falling asleep on

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his feet without dropping the bags. Pozzo discards the sucked-dry bones. Vladimir and Estragon examine Lucky’s rope-abraded neck, then notice his slobbering mouth and protruding eyes, speculating that he is perhaps half-witted. When they start to ask him a question, Pozzo tells them to leave Lucky alone since he (Lucky) obviously wants to rest. Nevertheless, Pozzo issues him further commands. As Pozzo lights his pipe, Estragon covets the discarded chicken bones on the ground. Lucky, jerked by the rope, returns the wine bottle to the basket. Estragon haltingly asks Pozzo if he has finished with the bones, but such impropriety shocks Vladimir. Pozzo acknowledges that he does not need the bones but adds that, theoretically, they now belong to his “carrier” and suggests that Estragon ask Lucky for them. Pozzo orders Lucky to reply, seemingly delighted that Lucky is addressed as “Mister.” After a long silence from Lucky, Pozzo tells Estragon that he can have the bones. He worries that Lucky, who never refused a bone before, may be sick. As Estragon gnaws the bones, Vladimir protests that Pozzo’s treatment of Lucky is scandalous. Estragon agrees but continues gnawing. Pozzo considers their criticism harsh and asks their ages. Receiving no reply, he asks their estimation of Lucky’s age. Estragon guesses 11. Pozzo says he must leave but decides to smoke another pipe, despite worries about nicotine’s effect on his heart. He considers whether to sit back down and how he can do so without appearing to falter. He orders Lucky to move the stool and return to his place. Vladimir angrily suggests to Estragon that they leave, but Estragon hopes for charity if they remain. Pozzo acknowledges that he may not be “particularly human” but adds, “Who cares?” He also asks what would happen to their appointment if they left, reminding them that Godot has control over at least their immediate futures. Vladimir wonders who told Pozzo this. Estragon asks why Lucky can’t put down the bags. Pozzo says that he too would like to meet Godot, since one benefits from meeting even “the meanest creature,” including even the two of them. Pozzo, who dislikes being asked questions, prefers to be called Sir. Nevertheless, he makes elaborate preparations to answer the question: he puts the pipe away, sprays his throat with a vaporizer (twice), and commands that all attention—including Lucky’s—be focused on him. He then forgets the question, gets angry when Estragon tries to restate it, and forgets what he was saying. When Estragon restates the question, Pozzo replies that Lucky doesn’t put down the bags, because he seeks to impress his master so that he will be kept on—or at least “mollify” him so that the master won’t sever their relationship. Vladimir repeatedly asks if Pozzo wants to rid himself of Lucky. Pozzo claims to have figured out Lucky’s “miserable scheme”—

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adding “as though I were short of slaves!” Pozzo notes that their roles could easily have been reversed, but chance willed otherwise. He finally admits that he is taking Lucky to be sold at a fair. Lucky weeps, hearing Pozzo’s opinion that it would be better to kill “such creatures.” He gives Estragon a handkerchief with which to wipe Lucky’s tears, but Estragon’s attempt to do so brings a violent kick to his shins. Estragon howls and staggers with pain. On Pozzo’s command, Lucky returns the handkerchief, resumes his place, and picks up his burdens again. Pozzo reminds them of his warning that Lucky dislikes strangers. Bleeding, Estragon fears that he will no longer be able to walk; Vladimir says he would carry him. In a way, Pozzo remarks, Estragon’s crying replaced Lucky’s; the amount of the world’s tears, like its laughs, remains constant, since whenever one person in the world stops weeping, somewhere another starts. He adds that the current generation is no unhappier than earlier ones, population increases notwithstanding; he prefers not to talk about the current generation at all. Estragon, trying to walk, spits on Lucky before going to sit on the mound. Pozzo claims he learned these insights from Lucky, without whom his thoughts and feelings would have been merely common. Knowing that “beauty, grace, [and] truth” would have been “beyond” him, nearly sixty years ago he “took a knook.” Ordered to remove his hat, Lucky reveals abundant white hair. Pozzo removes his hat; he is bald. Vladimir and Estragon are astonished that Pozzo would now cast away this old, faithful servant. When Pozzo collapses and grasps his head, Vladimir speculates that Pozzo may be going mad and then berates Lucky for “crucifying” one who is “such a good master.” Pozzo laments that Lucky was once kind, helpful, and entertaining. Suddenly calmer, he asks Vladimir and Estragon to forget and forgive what they have just heard, assuring them that there was no truth in it. Vladimir and Estragon comment on the unforgettable evening they are having, comparing it unfavorably to the pantomime, the circus, and the music hall. Vladimir leaves the stage to go to the bathroom as Pozzo fumbles for his lost pipe. Estragon summons Pozzo to come look offstage, remarking that “it’s all over.” Vladimir returns, pacing agitatedly, shoving Lucky, and kicking the stool. He then rights the stool and calms down, wondering if night will never come. Pozzo says he too would wait until dark if he had an appointment like theirs. He mispronounces Godot’s name. Pozzo would like to sit but waits to be asked. When Estragon complies, Pozzo refuses, asking to be asked again. Finally he sits, consults his watch, and insists he must go. Vladimir remarks that “time has stopped,” but Pozzo denies it. Noting that they are not from nearby, he offers to tell them about the twilights. Pozzo cracks his whip, which he complains is worn out. Estragon, when asked

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his name, replies “Adam.” Pozzo orders them, including dozing Lucky, to look at the newly pastel sky, formerly red and white; from behind its “veil of gentleness and peace,” night will come suddenly, unexpectedly. He remarks that “that’s how it is on this bitch of an earth.” After a long silence, Vladimir and Estragon say that, now knowing what to expect, they can continue to wait. When Pozzo asks how they liked his description, they reply appreciatively, though he continues to seek praise. Eventually Vladimir admits that he has been better entertained and complains that nothing happens. Pozzo wonders what else he can do to relieve the dullness of their time; he claims to be tortured over whether he has done enough. Estragon suggests that 10 or even 5 francs would be appreciated; Vladimir insists they are not beggars. Pozzo suggests having Lucky entertain them by thinking aloud, though Estragon would prefer him to dance. Addressed as “hog” and “misery,” Lucky complies, dancing what Pozzo calls “The Net.” Estragon and Vladimir suggest “The Scapegoat’s Agony” and “The Hard Stool” as titles. Pozzo agrees to tell them about one time Lucky refused to dance, but he cannot find his “pulverizer” and claims to have a weak lung. All three remove their hats to think where the pulverizer might be. Estragon asks why Lucky put down the bags; they decide it was in order to dance. After a silence, Estragon complains that “nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful!” Lucky will think for them but cannot do so without his hat. Estragon refuses to take it to him, and Vladimir proffers it without coming too near. Finally, at Pozzo’s insistence, he puts the hat on Lucky’s head, approaching him carefully from behind. Commanded to think, Lucky again begins to dance and is ordered to stop. Carefully positioned by a series of commands so that he faces the audience, he is again commanded to think. As Pozzo suffers, Vladimir and Estragon watch with rapt attention that is interrupted by protests. Lucky shouts out a seemingly inchoate, single-sentence tirade whose subjects include the postulated existence of a personal God who, with “divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown.” Hell, suffering, and a preoccupation with the passage of time are mentioned, and he cites unfinished works by members of the “Acacacacademy of Anthropopopometry of Essy-in-Possy” who contend that man, despite participation in various sports, “wastes and pines” in an “abode of stones.” A melee ensues, during which Vladimir and Estragon seize the hat so that Lucky will again be silent. Pozzo smashes the hat on the ground to make sure the thinking ceases. Pozzo kicks Lucky and jerks the rope to make him move on, but even with assistance from Vladimir he falls to the ground. They prop him up and

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return the bag to his hand. He gradually recovers his familiar stance and totters along on command. Pozzo thanks them, fumbling for his watch, asking which of them smells so; Estragon replies that he stinks from the feet and Vladimir from the mouth. They say repeated adieus and expressions of thanks. Pozzo finds that he seemingly cannot leave. Estragon replies, “Such is life.” Stretching the rope until he is offstage, Pozzo cracks the whip and orders Lucky to move on. They depart. After a lengthy silence, Estragon suggests that they too depart. Vladimir reminds him that they can’t, since they are waiting for Godot. Trying to make conversation, they consider how Pozzo and Lucky have changed, though they themselves cannot. They dispute whether they know them or have forgotten, and why they were (or seemed to be) unrecognized. From offstage, a boy calls them and timidly approaches, bringing a message from Mr. Godot. Asked why he is late, he replies that it is not his fault: he was afraid. He claims to have been there for some time but was afraid of the whip, the noise, and the men he did not know. Estragon shakes the boy, insisting that he has lied. Vladimir stops him, asking whether the boy has seen them before. He claims he does not know them and did not come the day before. He works for Godot, he says, tending goats; Godot does not beat him and is good to him, but he beats the boy’s brother, who tends sheep. The boy says he has no idea why this occurs; he is fed “fairly well” and does not know whether he is unhappy. The boys sleep in a hayloft, he contends. Asked what the boy should tell Godot, Vladimir replies that he should say he saw them. The boy runs away, and night suddenly falls; the moon rises. Estragon leaves his boots for someone else to find. He intends to go barefoot, noting that Christ did, but Vladimir doubts the appropriateness of such a self-comparison. Estragon insists that he has always considered himself in this way—although “they crucified quick” in those earlier times. Vladimir expresses hope for a better day tomorrow, when, according to the boy, Mr. Godot will surely come. They begin to leave, look again at the tree, and wish they had some rope. They have been together for perhaps fifty years, Vladimir says, though he admits he does not know. Estragon remembers throwing himself into the Rhone while they were grape harvesting and says Vladimir fished him out. Estragon wonders whether they would have been better off alone. They consider parting but conclude it is not worthwhile. They resolve to go but do not move. The curtain descends. In act two, four or five leaves are on the tree. Vladimir enters, anxiously examines Estragon’s neatly arranged boots, searches the horizon, and sings a song about a dog killed by a cook for stealing bread from the kitchen. Estragon enters but refuses an embrace or discussion, though he implores

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Vladimir to stay with him. After a long look, they embrace. Estragon, hearing Vladimir sing when alone, thought his friend happy at his absence; he claims he prefers being alone too. Vladimir asks why he always comes back. Vladimir insists he would not have let them beat Estragon, who says 10 assailants beat him although he did nothing to provoke them. Reassuring each other, they say they are happy and will continue to wait for Godot. Estragon’s speculation that he may not come baffles Vladimir. Changing the subject, Vladimir notices that the tree has changed and asks whether Estragon recalls that they considered hanging themselves from it yesterday. Estragon claims Vladimir dreamed it; he has forgotten the incident. He also does not recall the names of Pozzo and Lucky, though he remembers the lunatic who kicked his shins and the master who gave him a bone. Estragon asks whether that happened yesterday; Vladimir insists it did. Estragon, failing to recognize the place, insists that his life has been spent crawling through mud, not noticing scenery. Scanning the entire area, he claims he has never left “this muckheap.” Vladimir insists the landscape is quite different from “the Macon country.” Estragon denies having been there; Vladimir claims he was. Estragon says he has “puked [his] puke of a life away” in Cackon country, where they are now. Vladimir contends they once picked grapes for a man whose name he cannot recall in a place whose name he cannot recall, where everything was red. Estragon says he did not notice. After a silence, Vladimir sighs. Estragon suggests it would be better if they separated, but Vladimir notes that he always comes back. It would be best, Estragon says, to be killed like billions of others. Each man has “his little cross” until he dies and gets forgotten, Vladimir insists. Estragon suggests conversing calmly in the interim, being unable to remain silent. Conversation prevents their thinking and their hearing “dead voices,” which speak simultaneously, rustlingly, each endlessly murmuring to itself about its life. Neither having lived nor being dead somehow suffices for them. A long silence ensues; they continue waiting for Godot. Vladimir suggests starting all over again, but that would require a decision. They consider contradicting each other but instead ask each other questions. Vladimir wonders where “these corpses” and skeletons are from. Estragon suggests turning toward nature; Vladimir claims they have tried that already. Silence again follows; they concentrate, hats off, trying to find something else to think about. Vladimir tries to describe what happened from the beginning, noting that the formerly bare tree now has leaves after a single night. Estragon insists he is no historian and maintains that they were not there the day before. Asked where he thinks they were, he replies only vaguely, noting that “there’s no lack of void.” Asked what they did,

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he suggests that they “blathered” on no particular topic—as they have been doing for five decades. Estragon remembers the kick and the bones but not Pozzo and Lucky. Vladimir insists that Estragon raise his pants legs; after they stagger and struggle, he finds a festering sore, but Estragon seems not to associate it with the prior events. He must have thrown away his boots, which hurt his feet, though he does not know when he did so. Vladimir points to the boots onstage where Estragon left them yesterday, but Estragon contends that they are not his; they are not the same color. Vladimir contends that someone must have taken Estragon’s boots and left his own. Estragon suggests that they go; Vladimir reminds him that they are waiting for Godot. When Estragon claims he can’t go on, Vladimir offers him a black radish from among the turnips in his pocket. Estragon likes only pink ones and says he will go get a carrot, but he does not. When Vladimir complains that “this is becoming really insignificant,” Estragon replies, “Not enough.” Vladimir suggests that Estragon try on the boots; it will, Estragon says, help “give us the impression we exist.” After a long struggle, they get the boots on. Both fit, though Estragon says they are too big. They sit awhile on the mound; Vladimir sings. Estragon sleeps but wakes suddenly from a dream of falling. He is consoled by Vladimir as they walk together up and down. Estragon proposes that they go but is reminded that they are waiting for Godot. Though cold, they cannot leave until nightfall. Estragon despairingly asks what they will do; Vladimir chides him for whining. Estragon says he is going, but Vladimir notices Lucky’s hat, confirming his belief that this is the right place. He puts on Lucky’s hat, handing Estragon his own. Estragon replaces his with Vladimir’s, and a series of such exchanges ensues. Vladimir resolves to keep Lucky’s hat. Estragon reiterates his intention to go. Vladimir suggests that they imitate Pozzo and Lucky. Vladimir instructs in this pastime: Estragon should curse him, tell him to think, and order him to dance. Estragon leaves but hurries back shortly after Vladimir misses him. Estragon announces that “they” are approaching. Vladimir asserts that it is Godot, that they are “saved.” They run and scan the horizon, but there is no one. Estragon tries unsuccessfully to hide behind the tree, then admits his error and asks forgiveness. They continue watching the horizon in silence, seeing nothing. They begin to ask each other a question simultaneously, apologize, and then angrily insult each other. The last—and worst—insult is Estragon’s “crritic!” They then reconcile, embrace, and separate. To fill more time, they exercise, hopping briefly, then standing unsteadily on one leg. Estragon cries out for God’s pity. Pozzo and Lucky arrive. Pozzo is now blind. Lucky is burdened as before, but the rope is shorter so Pozzo can follow more easily. Pozzo

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walks into Lucky, who has stopped on seeing Estragon and Vladimir. Lucky drops the possessions into a heap. Estragon asks whether it is Godot. Pozzo cries for help. Vladimir welcomes the fact that they are no longer alone; as time flows, they will soon be away from there. Vladimir tells Estragon the person who arrived is not Godot but Pozzo and reminds him of the chicken bone, encouraging him to ask for another. They consider whether to help Pozzo get up as he struggles in agony on the ground. Estragon does not remember Lucky, who, Vladimir worries, might get away. They consider beating Lucky in his sleep but turn their attention to helping Pozzo, in hope of some reward. Vladimir notes that it is not every day that they get an opportunity to help another and says Pozzo’s pleas were addressed “to all mankind.” However, in their here and now, they are themselves “all mankind, whether [they] like it or not.” They should, therefore, “represent worthily for once the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us!” The ultimate question, he notes, is “What are we doing here[?]” Unlike many, and despite “immense confusion,” they know the answer. They simply wait until the arrival of Godot, or the fall of night, keeping their appointment whether it is ever to be fulfilled or not. When Vladimir asks, “How many people can say as much[?],” Estragon replies, “Billions.” As Pozzo’s cries for help continue, Vladimir meditates on the nature of habit and reason. Estragon contends that everyone is “born mad. Some remain so.” Pozzo offers to pay 100 francs for help, then raises the offer to 200. Appreciating the diversion but dreading being left alone again “in the midst of nothingness,” Vladimir tries to help Pozzo up but falls several times. Estragon says he will go; Vladimir agrees to go with him if he will help him up. Estragon suggests the Pyrenees, then reacts to Pozzo’s having farted. Eventually Estragon extends his hand to help Vladimir rise. He, too, falls. Pozzo, still seeking help, asks what happened. Estragon suggests sleep. Vladimir strikes Pozzo, who tries to crawl away, calls for help again, and collapses. They call his name, ask him to come back, and promise not to hurt him. Estragon suggests calling other names; Vladimir fears Pozzo is dying. Estragon tries the name Abel, then suggests the other is named Cain. When Pozzo calls for help again, Estragon concludes “he’s all humanity.” He wants to do something else but cannot think what. They get up. They plan to leave, but Vladimir reminds him they cannot since they are waiting for Godot. Finally they help Pozzo get onto his feet, but he falls again. Supporting his arms around their necks, they get him up again. When Pozzo tells them he is blind, Estragon thinks he can perhaps see the future. Pozzo asks if they are his friends and implores them not to leave. He asks the time and whether it is evening; they consider the sunset, though they are unsure where the west is. Estragon maintains the sun is

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perhaps rising, but Vladimir tells Pozzo that the long day they have lived must be nearing its end. Pozzo recalls the wonderfulness of having sight, and Vladimir asks if the blindness came suddenly. Pozzo says he awoke one day blind but does not know when, having now no notion of time. He sometimes wonders if he is still asleep. Pozzo asks whether they are at a place known as the Board. Vladimir describes the scene as “like nothing,” though there is a tree. Pozzo concludes it is not the Board. He asks where Lucky is and why he does not answer. They reply that he is nearby, either asleep or dead. Vladimir suggests Estragon go check on him, but he is reluctant, remembering what happened earlier. Pozzo tells him to pull the rope and, if there is no response, to kick Lucky in the face and groin. Vladimir considers this an opportunity for Estragon to get revenge. Pozzo assures him Lucky never defends himself. Estragon kicks Lucky furiously and berates him but hurts his foot, limps away, tries to remove the boot, and finally positions himself for sleep. Vladimir confirms that they are Pozzo and Lucky, but Pozzo does not remember meeting them or anyone yesterday; tomorrow, however, he will not remember meeting them today. Vladimir summarizes the previous day’s events, but Pozzo intends to go. Lucky gathers his burdens, setting them down to hand Pozzo the whip and rope. The bag contains sand, Pozzo claims. He orders Lucky to move on. Vladimir asks Pozzo to command Lucky to sing or recite, but he cannot; he is now mute, unable even to groan. Pozzo furiously replies to Vladimir’s question of when that happened, reasserting that he has no concept of time. Calming down, he claims “they give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s gone once more.” He again orders Lucky to move on; they leave the stage but are heard to fall. Vladimir awakens Estragon, who was “dreaming [he] was happy.” Vladimir wonders if Pozzo is really blind. Estragon asks if Pozzo was Godot, and Vladimir is increasingly unsure. As Estragon complains of a sore foot, Vladimir wonders, “Was I sleeping, while the other suffered? Am I sleeping now?” He ponders how he will summarize this day tomorrow and what truth there will be in it. He reflects on birth, time, and “our cries” that fill the air. He refers to habit as “the great deadener.” He feels that he too is being observed. A boy arrives. He insists he does not recognize Vladimir and did not come the day before, but he accedes to Vladimir’s claim that he (the boy) has a message from Godot, who will not come tonight but will come without fail tomorrow. The boy says he did not see Lucky and Pozzo, and he claims Godot “does nothing.” The boy’s brother is sick, he says, but he does not know whether he came yesterday. The boy confirms that Godot has a beard, which the boy thinks is white. Vladimir beseeches Christ’s

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mercy. There is silence. Vladimir tells the boy to tell Godot that he (the boy) saw him (Vladimir). He wants to make sure the boy will not claim tomorrow that he did not see him. The boy runs away. The moon rises. Estragon wakes, removes his boot, and says he will go. Vladimir reminds him they must return tomorrow to wait for Godot. If they did not, they would be punished. They look at the tree. They consider hanging themselves but have no rope and Estragon’s belt is too short. Estragon’s trousers fall when he removes the belt, which breaks when they pull on it. Estragon says they can bring a good piece of rope tomorrow. He claims he is unable to “go on like this.” Vladimir resolves that they will hang themselves the next day, “unless Godot comes,” in which case they would be “saved.” Estragon pulls on his trousers. They resolve to go but do not move. The play ends.

Chapter 2

TEXTS

The handwritten manuscript of En attendant Godot is contained in a single cheap graph-paper notebook that Beckett kept in his possession until his death (1989). To date, no facsimile of the manuscript has been published, although a detailed description of it appears in Ruby Cohn’s A Beckett Canon (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), which notes that a photocopy of it has been shown to selected Beckett scholars by his French publisher, Les Éditions de Minuit. The text is written in French on the right-hand pages of the notebook, then continues (doubling back to the beginning) on the left-hand pages; “only occasional crossouts and a relatively small quantity of doodles connote impediments to the creative flow” (Cohn, A Beckett Canon 176). The date of October 9, 1948, appears on the first page, and January 29, 1949, is on the last. There is no listing of a cast of characters, and the road and tree that constitute the set are indicated as coordinates on the graph paper. The two main characters are initially described as “vieillard[s]” (old men); the second of these addresses himself as Vladimir, and the other is identified in the manuscript’s first act as Lévy, which is changed to Estragon in act 2. Pozzo and Lucky are so named in the text, having initially been described as a large man and a small man, respectively. Along with the familiar nicknames Didi and Gogo, there are additional alternate names for both Vladimir (M. Albert) and Estragon (Macgrégor and Catulle).

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The first edition of En attendant Godot was published in Paris by Les Éditions de Minuit in October 1952, three months before its stage premiere; a revised version, incorporating production changes, was published in 1954. The same firm, headed by Jérôme Lindon, had also published Beckett’s novels and remained his French publisher throughout his lifetime. According to Ruby Cohn, “the manuscript…differs in many small details” from the published version (A Beckett Canon 177). During the rehearsals, in consultation with the director of the original production, Roger Blin, Beckett also made further revisions and cut some lines from the play; these are noted in his prompt copy, now at Trinity College in Dublin. Some of these deleted lines have been removed in the second French edition of the play, which was edited by Colin Duckworth and published as En attendant Godot (London: George G. Harrap & Co., 1966). Duckworth discusses these changes in his introduction to the volume, but James Knowlson remarks that other cuts, which he does not identify, “have not been excised to this day” (Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett [New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996], 349). Beckett’s translation of the play into English was first published in the United States by Grove Press in 1954. This edition began the idiosyncratic practice of numbering only the left-hand (verso) pages of the book, which has been continued in subsequent printings of this version of the text until recently. The American (and later the English) edition of the play contained many of the changes that had been initiated by Beckett and the modifications that had been suggested by Roger Blin. Grove Press has never permitted the inclusion of Waiting for Godot in anthologies, with the exception of its own Nine Plays of the Modern Theater, edited by Harold Clurman, originally published in 1962 as Seven Plays of the Modern Theater. The first edition of Waiting for Godot to be published in England was by Faber and Faber in 1956, although some passages in it had been censored by the Lord Chamberlain’s Office, the governmental authority established under the Licensing Act of 1737 to control all works presented on the public stage in Great Britain. Thus, for example, the words “arse,” “farted,” and “the clap” have been replaced with “backside,” “belched,” and “warts,” which were considered (presumably) more genteel. There are also significant variations in the stage directions in the English and American versions, and these changes seem unrelated to the Lord Chamberlain’s Office. For example, when Estragon first hears Godot’s name, the American text specifies that he reacts “despairingly,” as if he already knows that any expectations of Godot’s arrival lead routinely to disappointment; in the British version, this stage direction is omitted. Sometimes lines appear

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15

in the British version although there is no counterpart in the French or American editions; after losing his pulverizer, Pozzo remarks that “what can’t be cured must be endured” (Faber 40). Monetary units are francs in the French and American versions, but shillings and pence in the British one. In the British and French editions, Estragon identifies himself as Catullus (“Catulle” in French) in response to Pozzo’s question about his name (Faber 37; Minuit 60), whereas in the American text he gives the name Adam (25a). There are literally hundreds of differences among the three texts; although some are quite minor, any and all can presumably affect the rhythm, performance, and textuality of the play. For a detailed discussion of these variations among the first American, English, and French editions of Waiting for Godot, see Hersh Zeifman’s essay “The Alterable Whey of Words: The Texts of Waiting for Godot,” Educational Theatre Journal 29.1 (1977): 77–84; rpt. in Ruby Cohn’s Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot: A Casebook (London: Macmillan, 1987), 86–95. Since 1965, single-volume Faber editions of Waiting for Godot have presented the restored text, removing the emendations of the Lord Chamberlain’s Office (which was itself abolished by the Theatres Act of 1968). The second, so-called definitive English edition of Waiting for Godot was published by Faber and Faber in 1965, but the American (Grove Press) version has not been brought into line with it and remains the only readily available edition in the United States. However, when Faber and Faber published its collected edition entitled Samuel Beckett: The Complete Dramatic Works (1986), it was found to contain the original censored text rather than the unexpurgated or definitive one. The German translation by Elmar Tophoven was published by Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt, 1953) under the title Wir warten auf Godot; it was reissued as Warten auf Godot by the same publisher in 1960. A trilingual edition (German, French, and English) was published as Warten auf Godot. En attendant Godot. Waiting for Godot by Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt, 1971). In it, the French and English texts are presented in two columns on the left-hand pages, and the German text appears (in a larger typeface) on the right-hand pages. In 1993, Faber and Faber published the “revised” text of Waiting for Godot, edited by Dougald McMillan and James Knowlson in the first volume of The Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett, a series edited by Knowlson; the American edition was published by Grove Press in 1994. When Beckett himself directed the play, he introduced a number of changes to the published texts—additions, deletions, and revisions—that he regarded as improvements that were developed during the rehearsal process; some of these were the result of working with particular actors, while others were

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responses to such theatrical exigencies as a particular stage space or set. However, as Knowlson notes in his “General Editor’s Note,” “the revisions appear to represent a further dynamic stage in the writer’s own encounter with his text,” although “in the past, Beckett’s texts have not been revised to take account of these changes—partly because of a somewhat ambiguous attitude on the part of the author towards his originals[,]…[t]he texts are now [presented] as close as possible to how Beckett wanted them to be,” including “movements so carefully charted that the word ‘choreography’ can quite properly be applied” (v–vi). McMillan and Knowlson were given access to unpublished materials related to Beckett’s own productions of Godot, including two original directorial notebooks; the second, from the Schiller-Theater production in Berlin (March 1975), is reprinted in facsimile in the volume, with typed transcriptions immediately following each double-page reproduction of Beckett’s writing and diagrams. In addition to the two notebooks that Beckett kept, the texts consulted in establishing the revised edition were as follows: • the 1965 Faber edition • the 1954 Grove Press edition • the 1960 Suhrkamp Verlag edition, which was the basis of the 1975 Schiller-Theater production • two copies of the Suhrkamp Verlag edition (1960 and 1963) annotated by Beckett for the 1975 production • an acting copy of the Grove Press edition kept by Walter Asmus for the productions he directed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1978 and the San Quentin Drama Workshop in 1984 • two copies of the 1965 Faber edition with annotations by Beckett for the San Quentin Drama Workshop production at the Riverside Studios in 1984 • an acting copy of the 1954 Grove Press edition kept by Bud Thorpe, who played Vladimir in the 1984 San Quentin Drama Workshop production

In the McMillan and Knowlson edition, text that has been added to the original English version is enclosed in square brackets, [ ]; text that has been revised is enclosed in pointed brackets, { }. The presence of angle brackets, < >, indicates that a section of text has been excised from the original English text. Lines in the revised edition have been numbered, and textual notes accompany every line for which a number appears; the unorthodox page-numbering system of the 1954 Grove Press edition has not been retained. The text of the play occupies pages 7–85; the notes are on pages 87–171. The facsimile and transcription of Beckett’s notebook

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takes up pages 173–395, followed by editorial notes on it (397–422); the specific cuts and changes are listed on pages 423–465. The book’s extensive bibliography (467–472) includes all manuscripts, annotated copies, and other editions that Beckett is known to have consulted; there is also a list of recordings of Waiting for Godot, a bibliography on Beckett as a director (including reviews of his productions), and a separate select list of books through 1987 on Beckett’s plays. Among the changes made in the McMillan-Knowlson edition is the fact that Beckett opens both acts of the play with both Estragon and Vladimir onstage, emphasizing their inseparability; in earlier versions, Estragon sits alone when each act begins. There is also a long moment of stillness and silence—which Beckett called a Wartestelle (waiting period)—at the beginning of the play before Estragon struggles with his boot. Knowlson remarks that “this waiting motif [is] repeated at twelve strategically chosen points throughout the play in other static ‘tableaux’ (as Beckett also sometimes called them),” emphasizing the silence that is central to the play (xiii). Estragon sits on a stone rather than merely a mound, giving the set an additional landmark besides the lone tree; he also gravitates toward or returns to the stone more often than prior stage directions indicate. In response to Vladimir’s repeated explanations that they are waiting for Godot, Estragon now invariably replies only, “Ah, yes.” Several passages of dialogue have been inserted into the English and American texts to make them more consistent with the French original, but most of Beckett’s revisions affect the stage directions, making them far more precise. In sum, as Knowlson remarks in the introduction, the revised Waiting for Godot is “shorter, tighter in structure, and visualized much more clearly in theatrical terms” (xii). Unfortunately, this exemplary work of modern textual scholarship was published only in a hardback edition that is now out of print. Because of the number of textual facsimiles that the volume contains, it was relatively expensive for most readers (initial retail price in the United States was $75) and obviously not practical for classroom adoption. No paperback edition of the volume was issued, and the revised text—with or without the annotations and with or without a transcription of the notebooks—has not been separately issued. The 1954 Grove Press edition remains the only widely available version in the United States today. AUDIO AND VIDEO RECORDINGS Although Samuel Beckett consistently opposed the production of any filmed or videotaped versions of Waiting for Godot, a number of such recorded texts are available. The reasons for Beckett’s objections were concisely stated in his letter to Jack MacGowran, quoted in Jordan R.

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Young’s The Beckett Actor: Jack MacGowran, Beginning to End (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Moonstone Press, 1987), regarding preliminary plans by director Roman Polanski to make a film of it: I’m terribly sorry to disappoint you and Polanski but I don’t want any film of Godot. As it stands it is simply not cinema material. And adaptation would destroy it. Please forgive me—and don’t think of me as a purist bastard. (120)

Similarly, when actor Peter O’Toole proposed to produce and star in a film of Waiting for Godot, with MacGowran as Lucky, from a screen adaptation by Tom Stoppard and utilizing a locale in western Ireland, Beckett also refused. “How can you photograph words?” was reportedly Beckett’s question (Young 87–88; see also Knowlson, 449–450). In general, the playwright opposed any transposition of any of his works into any medium other than the one for which it was written—though his collected works for performance demonstrate a remarkably sophisticated technical mastery of many such forms, including radio drama (All That Fall and Embers), film (Film), teleplays (Ghost Trio and…but the clouds…), mimes (Act without Words I for one player and Act without Words II for two), and a work that can best be described as geometric choreography (Quad). On those occasions when Beckett relented and allowed recorded productions, it was often as a favor to personal friends, and he refused permission to many of the most prominent actors and directors in cinema history (including Ingmar Bergman in addition to those named above). The earliest commercially available recording of Waiting for Godot is the 1956 two-record set (Caedmon TRS352, 110 minutes) featuring the original New York cast of the play: Bert Lahr (Estragon), E. G. Marshall (Vladimir), Kurt Kasznar (Pozzo), Alvin Epstein (Lucky), and Luchino Solito de Solis (the boy). It is not, however, a recording of an actual stage performance. Directed by Herbert Berghof, the Caedmon version also contains what its producer, Goddard Lieberson, describes in his brief album note as “invented sounds of a more or less abstract nature, created by myself with the electronic assistance of our valued engineer, Mr. Fred Plaut.” The illustration on the front cover is a striking collage of multiple close-ups of the five actors in their makeup and costumes; the back cover features an essay by playwright William Saroyan, “A Few Words about Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.” In December 1960, Alan Schneider directed the first television version of Waiting for Godot; it was broadcast during the week of April 3–8, 1961,

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on WNTA as part of its Play-of-the-Week series. The cast included Burgess Meredith (Vladimir), Zero Mostel (Estragon), Kurt Kasznar (Pozzo), Alvin Epstein (Lucky), and Luke Halpin (the boy); a 90-second introduction to the play is provided by Barney Rosset, Beckett’s publisher at Grove Press. This black-and-white version, originally available in 16 mm film format (105 minutes), was released on videotape by Applause in 1997. The set features a surprisingly hilly landscape and cloudy sky on its obviously painted backdrop (set design by Jac Venza). In the second act, much of Vladimir’s speech between the departure of Pozzo and Lucky and the arrival of the boy is presented as a voiceover, rather than spoken aloud, as Estragon sleeps. The production also contains one surprising reference to the then-still-new medium of television itself: instead of the reference to the pantomime that is printed in the text (23a), Burgess Meredith (looking directly into the camera) says, “It’s worse than TV.” For further details, see Jerry Tallmer, “The Magic Box,” Evergreen Review 5 (July–August 1961): 17–22. Two months after Schneider’s version was broadcast in the United States, Donald McWhinnie’s television production of Waiting for Godot was telecast on BBC 1 on June 22, 1961, with Jack MacGowran (Vladimir), Peter Woodthorpe (Estragon), Felix Felton (Pozzo), Timothy Bateson (Lucky), and Mark Mileham (the boy). MacGowran was later named Television Actor of the Year for his performance, but Beckett was displeased with the production, which he watched in the company of MacGowran, Woodthorpe, McWhinnie, and his English publisher, John Calder. His primary objection concerned the way in which the medium (which he called “the box”) changed the proportions and perspectives of the actors and the space that they occupied. The play, he said, “was written for small men locked in a big space,” while television made them “too big for the place” (qtd. in Knowlson, Damned to Fame 436). Under the direction of its founder, Rick Cluchey, the San Quentin Drama Workshop produced its version of Waiting for Godot in 1957, based on Beckett’s specifications for the 1975 production that he directed at the Schiller-Theater in Berlin. Under the auspices of the misleadingly titled Beckett Directs Beckett program, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the video version of Cluchey’s production was made available in 1990, initially through the Smithsonian Video Library of the Smithsonian Institution Press (later through the Visual Press of the University of Maryland). The play’s two acts are presented on separate cassettes; their running times are 77 minutes and 60 minutes, respectively. The cast consisted of Bud Thorpe (Vladimir), Lawrence Held (Estragon), Rick Cluchey (Pozzo), Alan Mandell (Lucky), and Louis Beckett Cluchey

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(the boy). The two other tapes in the series (which was sold as a set) were Endgame and Krapp’s Last Tape. The Beckett Directs Beckett project also produced a French version of the play, directed by Walter Asmus, who also followed Beckett’s 1975 directorial specifications. The cast of En attendant Godot was composed of Rufus as Vladimir, Jean-François Balmer as Estragon, Jean-Pierre Joris as Pozzo, and Roman Polanski as Lucky. A documentary entitled “Waiting for Godot in San Quentin” was directed by John Reilly, produced by Global Village of New York, and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities as part of the Beckett project. Jan Jonson, the Swedish actor, had directed a production of the play in 1985 in Kumla, Sweden, using a cast composed of prison inmates; Reilly’s documentary follows a similar production in 1988 when Jonson again directed it with a cast of inmates, this time at San Quentin Prison in California. Originally intended for broadcast on PBS, it has been released on videotape; many of the lines are literally screamed, and the play is characterized by a striking, strident, and passionate intensity. The Beckett project has also produced an introductory biographical video entitled Waiting for Beckett, which includes interview segments with a number of his friends and associates as well as literary scholars. Archival footage from a number of productions is also shown, and selections from his letters are read. The above-mentioned Beckett project should not be confused with the Beckett on Film project, which released a set of 19 Beckett plays on DVD in 2002. This series was produced by Michael Colgan and Alan Moloney of Blue Angel Films, with funding from RTÉ (Radio Telefis Éireann), Channel 4, Bord Scannán na hÉireann, and Tyrann productions. Each of Beckett’s plays, except the published-but-never-produced Eleuthéria, was assigned a different director (including David Mamet, Anthony Minghella, Karel Reisz, and Neil Jordan), and many prominent actors appeared in the series (among them Jeremy Irons, Julianne Moore, Harold Pinter, and John Gielgud in the final performance of his career). The two-hour production of Waiting for Godot, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, features four of the five cast members of the much-acclaimed production at the Gate Theatre in Dublin in 1991 (which was directed by Walter Asmus): Barry McGovern as Vladimir, Johnny Murphy as Estragon, Alan Stanford as Pozzo, and Stephen Brennan as Lucky. The boy is played by Sam McGovern in the filmed version. The film’s set consists of a curved road that winds between waist-to-shoulder-high piles of crushed rock—a quite literal “place of stones” from which only a few tufts of grass or weeds and, of course, the tree protrude; the sky-colored backdrop is obviously artifi-

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cial (a decision that helps preserve the play’s metatheatricality), and the fall of night is unmistakably an effect of stage lighting, as is the rapid rise of the projected moon. Though the pauses and silences are less lengthy than in many other productions (probably to keep within the two-hour running time), the production is on the whole remarkably faithful to the text, and the authenticity of the Irish accents and idioms of the cast enhances the performance and can clarify for a non-Irish audience the rhythms and humor of the play. For many reasons, this version of Waiting for Godot is probably the production of choice for classroom use. Unfortunately, the same cannot necessarily be said of the series as a whole, which has received decidedly mixed reviews from Beckett aficionados, primarily because a number of the plays have been “creatively” adapted or “reimagined” to such an extent that some bear scant resemblance to the stage versions of the plays. This is particularly true of the shorter plays, including Play (in which Anthony Minghella substitutes the camera itself for the onstage inquisitorial light, places the urns in a crowded field of other such vessels, and introduces MTV-style jump-cut editing) and the 35-second “dramaticule” Breath (which installation artist Damien Hirst set on a floating island in outer space). The merits, if any, of such alterations are, of course, an appropriate subject of critical debate, but users of the Beckett on Film series should be aware that the productions vary greatly in their fidelity to Beckett’s texts and his own specifications. A 52-minute documentary on this controversy is included on the same DVD as Waiting for Godot. Titled “Check the Gate: Putting Beckett on Film” and directed by Pearse Lehane, it features the producers, a number of the directors (including Michael Lindsay-Hogg), and several actors from the various plays discussing the issues involved in adapting the plays from stage to screen. The dissenting view is represented in two segments featuring journalist Tom McGurk, whose primary objection is that “the film camera is now interpreting for the non-existent audience what’s happening on the stage…. That can’t be acceptable.” The quite separate issue that some adaptations may be more “acceptable” than others is not specifically addressed. The DVD’s “Addenda” section includes a brief and very basic background about the play, a number of still photographs from the production, and a short interview with director Lindsay-Hogg. In the United States, the Beckett on Film production of Waiting for Godot was shown on PBS early in 2003. Several months earlier, a twohour compilation of the shorter plays was also telecast. These plays were introduced by Jeremy Irons, who also provided transitional commentary and background information between them.

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An abridged audio version of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival (Canada) production of Waiting for Godot was released as a CD by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC Audio) in August 2004. For an introductory sampling of Beckett’s works, see Jack MacGowran’s 58-minute film Beginning to End, in which he adapted and performed a number of passages of Beckett’s writing, primarily from the novels. The unique combination of humor, pathos, and poetry that characterizes Beckett’s writing is especially evident in MacGowran’s rendition, which provides an effective context for Waiting for Godot.

Chapter 3

MEANING

Any understanding of what Waiting for Godot means must be predicated on an understanding of how it means, for Beckett’s play almost singlehandedly transformed many theatergoers’ (and even many theater critics’) view of what dramatic meaning is and can be. Even Kenneth Tynan, the foremost English theater critic of his time, acknowledged that “it forced me to re-examine the rules which have governed the drama; and having done so, to pronounce them not elastic enough” (reprinted in John Elsom, Postwar British Theatre Criticism [London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981], 70). Although its detractors have often accused it of obscurity, its language is remarkably simple: its dialogue consists almost entirely of words of one syllable. Although many admirers find it poetic and eloquent, it lacks such traditional elements of poetry as meter and rhyme, and its similes definitely do not soar or seek to inspire. The play’s minimal plot and action are accurately described in its title: throughout the duration of the play, and throughout an undeterminable amount of time that elapses in their lives, the two central characters await an event that does not happen and may never happen. Meanwhile, necessarily, they pass away their time in sometimes abrasive conversation, in chance encounters with a pair of odd passersby, and in expressions of mutual if sometimes exasperated compassion and the long-standing concern that can develop only between inseparable friends. The setting, which consists of a road and a tree, is so simple that it could well be near the middle of nowhere or, indeed, anywhere that is not urban. As the poet Philip Larkin has observed, “Nothing, like something,

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happens anywhere” (“I Remember, I Remember,” Collected Poems [New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1988], 82). Indeed, that “nothing happens” in the play is the crux of the controversy that it often provokes and a key to its innovativeness in dramatic form. It lacks any semblance of the longfamiliar “shape” of drama: an exposition, complication, climax, and resolution or dénouement. Furthermore, there is apparently no central struggle or agon, no protagonist or antagonist, no hero or villain. Writing about James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake in his essay entitled “Dante…Bruno . Vico . . Joyce,” Beckett admiringly observed that “his [Joyce’s] writing is not about something; it is that something itself” (James Joyce: A Symposium: Our Examination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress [1929; New York: New Directions, 1972], 14). Much the same can be said of Waiting for Godot. While it can be read within an almost limitless number of philosophical, religious, and even political contexts, it validates or authorizes none of them; the kind of traditional critical explications that long-familiar types of literature beget remain curiously inadequate here. First and foremost, the play is not allegorical: its apparent symbols do not yield a neat and comfortable one-to-one equation that explains “what it all means,” a “totalizing” impulse that the play (and, Beckett would argue, the world) defeats. Like the “fragments shored against my ruin” evoked in T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, the play’s many overt Christian references (the crucified thieves, the sheep and the goats, etc.) are shards of a culture, used for their suggestiveness but without exact allegorical equation. Among readers and audience members, as among Beckett’s characters themselves, a disconcerting uncertainty about the meaning of the play is a crucial part of the experience of Waiting for Godot and any critical discussion of it. Apart from the fact of the characters’ waiting and the occurrence of certain events during the time onstage, the only certainty is that any certainty about their plight is wrong. Even the amount of time that passes between the two acts is unascertainable. 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. The only certainty about Godot is the fact of his apparent absence—but no one can be sure even about the kind of absence that it is. This, indeed, is the central problem of the play, for absences can be of two very distinct varieties: the absence of the existent and the absence of the nonexistent. The first of these is the absence of the kind that your friends and family feel when you are away at school, at work, or traveling abroad, for example; though you are absent from a given locale, you certainly continue to

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exist in some unseen otherwhere. You might reasonably be expected to return, perhaps even at some predictable time, and others could keep an appointment to meet you somewhere. The second type of absence, however, occurs because the absentee does not now and/or did not ever exist: mythological beings like Zeus or Baal or Mithras (or thousands of other now-defunct gods), leprechauns, fairies, and Santa Claus are all examples of this second type of absence—a category in which some would include the Judeo-Christian God as well. The central, forever unsolvable mystery of Waiting for Godot—preceding even any consideration of who Godot is or what Godot represents—is precisely this: the nature of his absence. Is there in fact a Godot who does somewhere exist, who does send the boy as his messenger, and whose unexplainedly deferred coming might actually occur in the always-promised tomorrow? Or is Godot a figment of the imagination, a fantasy projected out of the needs and yearnings of those who want earnestly to believe in his existence, who define their lives by his expectations, and who find their purpose and meaning in waiting to obey his command? The play provides—but also undermines—substantial evidence to support each of these possibilities. Ultimately, however, it validates neither, leaving the question as irresolvable for the audience in the theater as it is for the characters on the stage. Yet the question must be addressed, for the nature of Godot’s absence defines the nature of the universe in which the characters live and, indeed, defines the characters themselves. If there is an actual Godot who might eventually arrive, whether he ever does so or not, the hope and persistence of Vladimir and Estragon in continuing to wait may not be forever in vain. If, on the other hand, there is no Godot, they are self-deluding vagabonds who fail to confront the reality of their futile situation, hoping and waiting pointlessly in an existential void, seeking an affirmation and a personal validation that can and will by definition certainly never come. Each reader’s reaction to this central but irresolvable issue—and each theatergoer’s response to it in viewing a production—determines the very nature of the play that she or he reads or sees as well as any interpretation that is subsequently made. Nevertheless, the play is fundamentally not about Godot, the “absent presence” (or, as some would prefer, the “present absence”) of whatever kind. Instead, as the title ever-so-plainly indicates, it is about the act of waiting itself. In the absence of certainty about the nature of the universe, in the absence of the presence of the purpose-defining Other that Godot is (whether he exists or not), how does or should one pass the time? What is one to do, all day long—or all life long, for that matter, if it comes to that? These practical questions, too, have no single right answer, no ascertainable absolute handed down from on high. Unable or unwilling to

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confront this plight directly, which would entail defining themselves apart from Godot and the self-imposed (or Godot-imposed) task of waiting, they while away the time and fill the otherwise all-engulfing silence with banter and insult, jokes and perhaps-remembered narratives, theological speculations and vaudeville routines, as well as interactions (whether kind or cruel) with any random passersby. By implication, so do we all if we but knew. Yet, it seems, so much depends on Godot’s arrival: in particular, an expectation that they will be “saved”—a term rife with both theological and nontheological implications. Those who consider Waiting for Godot fundamentally within the Christian context deem this to be the traditional term of redemption, with Godot as its Christlike agent if not, indeed, Christ himself (a claim that Beckett explicitly denied). Yet the term may equally be taken nontheologically, as no more than an affirmation that, if Godot ever arrives, they will be released from the obligation of waiting and validated for having kept their appointment despite all delays, their wait having been confirmed as somehow worthwhile. Those who favor the existential reading of the play insist that this expectation is necessarily false in a universe where Godot or any similar agency of so-called redemption is simply nonexistent, making the characters’ wait an exercise in infinitely prolongable futility in a godless void. Again, the play accommodates utterly opposite interpretations, ultimately affirming neither but encouraging plenty of argument about each. As the actor Jack MacGowran famously observed, the key word in all of Beckett’s writing is “perhaps.” The playwright’s own religious attitude can best be described as a radical agnosticism, an extreme form of unknowing, an absolute unwillingness to presume to know what “the truth” is, or even if there is any. There is one thing that religious believers and atheists have in common, according to this point of view: each is too certain that his or her own belief system is right, that his or her own conception of the universe is the only one that is true. Beckett’s characters are never so arrogant and self-privileging as to presume to know any such thing. So, instead, they continue to wait, with hopes deferred but never extinguished, delusional (or not) though that may be. The stage set for Waiting for Godot is simultaneously anywhere and nowhere, a stretch of barren countryside that is minimally defined: a road, a rock (or mound), and a bare tree. As bleak as the surreal plain of Salvador Dali’s paintings (such as The Persistence of Memory), it is part of no known country at no particular time; the names of nearby countries are nonsense words. Similarly, the characters’ names do little or nothing to establish a locale; their etymologies seem to be Russian (Vladimir),

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French (Estragon), Italian (Pozzo), and English (Lucky), but no details of their lives confirm any such personal origins there. The physical space of the stage itself is their only certain domain, and the “reality” of the offstage space (and the characters’ previous lives) remains as unknowable as the identity and motives of the never-identified “they” who apparently administer beatings in the nighttime. When, at the beginning of the second act, the tree has sprouted a few leaves, it is even unclear how much time has passed in the characters’ lives (“yesterday” may or may not literally have been yesterday, if all days are the same in the suspended time that waiting entails). Waiting for Godot is thus unlike traditional plays in which a specified length of time (even years) has passed between the acts (a fact that is often disclosed in the play’s program if not always made clear in the stage action itself). Here, the only certain duration is the actual clock time of each act itself, which even Beckett’s characters acknowledge may be filled with boredom. Estragon’s famous opening statement that there is “nothing to be done” succinctly establishes the play’s tone. Because the act of waiting is defined by an absence, by an event anticipated but not yet come, it comprises a sort of suspended time, during which nothing else of much significance can be accomplished. Moreover, like James Joyce’s Dubliners, Waiting for Godot begins with words that are usually spoken of (or over) the dying: Joyce’s story “The Sisters” opens with, “There was no hope for him this time.” Each is an admission of powerlessness, futility and, in the Joycean sense of the term, paralysis. The play’s beginning, therefore, connotes an ending; it is simultaneously an alpha and an omega. Those who favor an existential reading of the play find particular irony in Estragon’s struggle to remove his boot—a parody, perhaps, of philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre’s emphasis on la lutte, the human “struggle” that defines our existence as we try to define our existence. Sartre’s lofty, difficult, ongoing, eventually exalting philosophical struggle, on which so very much depends, remains totally beyond the poor powers of Beckett’s characters. Their struggles are always far more mundane—trying to cope with ill-fitting boots, trousers that fall down, tree boughs and ropes that might break at the most inopportune time, and the unexplained animosity of the unknown “they.” Far from being engagé in the existential struggle of self-definition, Vladimir and Estragon are, in effect, defined by the absent Other, by Godot, and by the inherently passive act of waiting for something exterior to themselves to ratify their purpose, to validate their existence. Such an attitude is an example of Sartrean “bad faith,” an exercise in futility in a universe in which no such validating Other (no God, for example) exists to provide such an extraordinarily wonderful service. Vladimir’s reply to Estragon’s

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remark, indicating that he is beginning to share his companion’s opinion, clearly does not refer to the mundane problem of tugging off boots. Always the more contemplative of the pair, Vladimir may have glimpsed the ultimate futility of their plight, but he refuses to accept such a notion until all other options have been exhausted, until everything else has been tried. Since waiting again tomorrow—doing something by doing nothing yet again—is an infinitely inexhaustible prospect, there will always remain some faint source of hope, or at least the consolation of habit, however illogical it may be and however often experience has proved it wrong. This fundamentally comic resilience refutes the common misconception of Beckett as a “writer of despair.” No matter how bleak or desolate their plights may seem to their audience, Beckett’s characters themselves never give in to the temptation to despair. Without exception, Beckett’s characters always somehow manage to “go on,” a key phrase that recurs throughout his fiction after The Unnamable (1953). They often wish for release from their plights; many who lack even the specific defining purpose of Vladimir and Estragon long for what Shakespeare termed “mere oblivion”—a peaceful nonexistence; an absence of words, body, and even consciousness itself. Unable to achieve it, they persist and subsist, seldom complaining, diverting themselves however they can with whatever resources they can muster. For that purpose, at least, two are better than one. Whereas the title characters of the trilogy of novels that preceded Waiting for Godot were isolated individuals who had to rely exclusively on their inner resources in unrelieved solitude (Molloy, Malone, and The Unnamable), Vladimir and Estragon have at least the consolation of company—as do Hamm and Clov in Endgame (1959), Winnie and Willie in Happy Days (1961), and Mercier and Camier in the novella of that name (1975). Frustrating though the presence of the other may often be for each, the Beckettian pairs are ultimately inseparable; each provides strength and distraction for the other, plus the consolation that comes when a burden is shared. Like the early film comedians Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, whose comic timing can be heard not only in the renowned pauses and silences of Waiting for Godot but also in the rhythm of its dialogue, Vladimir and Estragon are lifelong companions, but they have very distinct and, indeed, complementary personalities. Vladimir, like Hardy, is the more thoughtful of the two. Estragon, like Laurel, is the more complacent and befuddled, more concerned with the physical realm (the unfitting boots, the carrot, the discarded chicken bone); he is also decidedly less able (or less willing) to speculate, to philosophize, or to remember things. Estragon’s “place” is the mound (the stone, the earth, the physical body), while Vladimir is

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more closely associated with the tree (“higher” things, the mind, air). Each would be incomplete without the other—not least because each provides an audience for the other’s words and actions, diversions that help pass the time while waiting for the transformative event, Godot’s arrival, to occur. Despite occasional frustrations and outbursts of petulance, during one of which they consider whether their lives would be better apart, their apparently lifelong bond keeps them inseparable and sustains them more than either ever admits. Their relationship, like any genuine friendship, can be characterized as “horizontal”: based on parity and ultimate equality, despite whatever differences there may be, with resources (however meager) and burdens (however heavy) always to be shared. Among the pastimes, Vladimir’s literally idle philosophical speculations remain fundamentally irresolvable: whether, for example, Estragon’s pain can be blamed more on his boots or his feet. When attention turns to matters of Christian theology, even the familiar becomes vexatious and perplexing, an estrangement that invites the reader or viewer to rethink received opinion from an absurdist point of view. That one of the thieves crucified alongside Christ was saved at the last minute while the other was damned no longer offers quite the long-standard homiletic reassurance of a possible last-minute salvation through mercy and grace. Instead, it seems to imply an unfathomable arbitrariness of divine grace, eternally rewarding the one who happened to say the right words at the apposite time, while punishing forever the other who, for unknowable reasons (perhaps mere mischance or even the bad timing of being unconscious or already dead), said nothing. Repentance gets briefly considered, though they have no idea for what or how much; Estragon’s laugh-provoking suggestion that it might start with having been born suggests the Christian doctrine of original sin. That Vladimir’s laughter is interrupted by the pain of his prostatitis serves as a reminder of the myriad afflictions that assail the supposedly divinely created body; it makes literal Percy Shelley’s lines in “To a Skylark” that We look before and after And pine for what is not— Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught[.]

“Looking before and after” is, of course, what Vladimir and Estragon constantly do. In contemplating the Bible (even if Estragon recalls only its colored maps), in trying to share memories and half-forgotten quotations, their attention is focused on what has happened “before” (whether to them-

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selves personally or to humanity in general). In waiting for Godot they are focused on an event that will come “after” the current time. In either instance, they avoid confronting their plight in the present—of which a sudden pain is the most unignorable reminder. When they do turn their attentions to the task at hand, the present is no less uncertain than the past or future. They know that they were to wait beside the tree, but it may not be this tree (though they see no other) or this place or, indeed, this day. They cannot remember what they did the day before, or where they were, or whether Saturday was the appointed day, or whether it is indeed now Saturday. Accordingly, they may have missed Godot already, unknowably, although Godot has not promised for certain that he would come even if they are in the right place at the right time. As Vladimir paces and frets among the irresolvable possibilities, Estragon falls asleep and has a nightmare. However dire the past, present, or future prospects, suicide always remains a possible and permanent release from their plight, and they duly consider hanging themselves. In contrast to Hamlet’s metaphysical speculations on suicide in the “To be or not to be” soliloquy, Vladimir and Estragon puzzle over more mundane physical issues of how it could be expeditiously done. Despite their anticipation of the erection that would be a physiological bonus, they are deterred by the prospect of the tree’s bough breaking, leaving one of them alone. Notably, this realization comes from Estragon—a result of his more physical, practical, body-based knowledge (which he articulates with difficulty) rather than Vladimir’s more theoretical intellect. Typically, they resolve to do nothing, to wait for Godot. They then discuss their request or prayer or supplication to him and possible reasons for his delay. They have, it seems, forfeited any rights that they might have had, but why or how this happened remains unexplained. In the presence of the unknown or abstract, Estragon’s attention soon returns to the physical: he asks Vladimir for a carrot. The arrival of Pozzo and Lucky follows a discussion about whether things (specifically, the carrot) get progressively worse or whether one gets accustomed to the mire of existence. Whereas the relationship between Vladimir and Estragon is fundamentally “horizontal,” a parity between friends with complementary personalities, the association of Pozzo and Lucky is purely “vertical”—an unrelentingly maintained affirmation of dominance and submission, master and servant, owner and slave. Whether the origin of their bond is economic, political, psychological, or some combination of the three, it is a manifestation of sheer power of the most exploitative, degrading, and abusive kind. Pozzo is a lordly master—arrogant, pompous, vain, gran-

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diloquent, condescending, self-righteous, imperious, and (above all else) oblivious to the sufferings of others. The ironically named Lucky is his suffering servant—literally chattel, a burden bearer who labors his way forward grasping Pozzo’s various possessions precariously in his arms. Moreover, since the first performance of the play in 1953, Lucky has also been played as physically deformed, drooling and grotesque, a victim not only of interpersonal abuse and economic exploitation but also whatever medical maladies the flesh is heir to. Although he and Pozzo closely resemble the Fraternelli Clowns, from whose circus act they were derived, their unexplained and unexpected arrival onstage in Waiting for Godot is one of the most startling, compelling, and appalling visual images in the history of drama. The fact that Vladimir and Estragon initially believe that Pozzo might be Godot not only reinforces the fact that they have apparently never seen him but also suggests that they are expecting him to be a “lordly master”—a phrase that is rife with overtones of the Christian God, though no less so than the term “suffering servant,” which fittingly describes both Christ and Lucky. No confirmation of either suggestion is forthcoming in the play, however, and such facile allegorization undermines its complexity. When Pozzo questions them about Godot’s identity, their answers are remarkably vague and thus extraordinarily revealing, laced with selfjustifications for their apparent error. They have little if any direct knowledge of Godot and might well not recognize him even if he came but did not, for whatever reason, disclose himself. Although Pozzo claims to own the land thereabouts, this peremptory assertion of power remains unconfirmed. About Pozzo’s abusiveness and dominance over Lucky, however, there can be no doubt: the epithets, usually referring to swine, literally dehumanize him—so do the rope leash and the whip that goad him to obey his master’s commands. That he is to be sold at a fair further reduces him to a mere economic commodity, not even necessarily an animal. When Vladimir and Estragon inspect Lucky, they too discuss him as if he is no more than an object: they comment on his deformity, remark on the rope burn on his neck, and speculate aloud and openly that he may be halfwitted. Pozzo’s insensitivity is further demonstrated as he gluttonously devours his chicken, never offering to share, and cavalierly discards the bones before complacently lighting his pipe. When Estragon covets the bones for himself, Pozzo remarks that they technically belong to “the carrier”—yet another strategy of depersonalization, denying Lucky even the dignity of a name. At the end of his preposterously prolonged response to the question of why Lucky cannot or does not put down the bags that he carries, Pozzo concedes that his servant does theoretically have such

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a right but apparently chooses not to exercise it and therefore must be content with things as they are—a ratiocination that bespeaks the kind of callous unconcern that, in one form or another, has accompanied the brutal exploitations carried out by many oppressors throughout history. For their victims, life becomes an endless series of enforced obsequies, attempts to impress and to mollify, with acceptance or amelioration a goal that is as infinitely deferrable as the arrival of Godot. No wonder Lucky weeps—but when consolation is offered in Estragon’s attempt to dry his tears, the result is a kick in the shins for the would-be consoler. Sentimentality and pity, too, can be forms of condescension—or perhaps Lucky simply takes satisfaction in lashing out when he knows he can do it with impunity, exactly like (and thus no better than) Pozzo when empowered even a little bit. Furthermore, Pozzo acknowledges that their roles could have easily been reversed (as they are, in many ways, in the second act). The accident of birth or social circumstance that indentures Lucky is thus no less arbitrary (or capricious) than the fate of the crucified thieves that Vladimir and Estragon discussed earlier; there is no rational explanation in a universe where, Pozzo claims, the quantities of tears and laughter alike remain constant. Vladimir and Estragon’s sympathies prove fickle as well: they are just as willing to rebuke Lucky (following his master’s real or simulated breakdown) as they are Pozzo a few moments earlier. When the conversation between Vladimir and Estragon turns to how boring the evening’s events have been, in contrast to the music hall, the pantomime, or the circus, their comments reiterate conclusions that many theatergoers had already and quite independently reached, particularly during early productions of the play (but also among those who approach the play unknowingly even today). Although Waiting for Godot has close affinities with all three of the aforementioned forms of entertainment, its presence in a theater elicits a wholly different set of conventional expectations that Beckett’s writing deliberately refuses to fulfill: a cleverly contrived plot, an engaging “action,” a central agon (conflict), and a discernible movement toward a resolution or denouement. In noting that there is no evidence of these in their evening, Vladimir and Estragon thus anticipate—and parody—the reactions of many in their audience, ordinary theatergoers and critics alike. The word “critic” (protractedly pronounced) is, they think, the worst term of abuse that one can hurl at another. Such theatrical self-reflexivity (acknowledging the theater as theater) places Waiting for Godot within the centuries-long tradition of “metatheater,” but does so in a uniquely Beckettian way—in contrast to the play-within-aplay style found in Hamlet and many others, the intrusion of an uncomprehending spectator in Francis Beaumont’s The Knight of the Burning

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Pestle, or the deconstruction of theatrical form itself in Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author. Vladimir and Estragon are aware of themselves as an audience for Pozzo, Lucky, and whatever else might happen in front of them, even as (and if) their reactions are shared by the otherwise-unacknowledged but discomfited audience that is sitting in the theater observing them in real time. Even their short volleys of dialogue (stichomythia) and their personal interactions are performances of a sort, as each seeks a response or appreciation from the other, an inherent confirmation and validation of one’s own existence. So do we all, of course, almost all the time; onstage and off, the line between reality and performance is thus hopelessly—and quite Beckettianly—blurred. For both the audience onstage and the one in the theater, the most remarkable such performance is undoubtedly Lucky’s monologue, given when he is called upon to think. Often (mis)delivered at breakneck speed in order to enhance the impression that it verges on incoherence and gibberish, his tirade is a single-sentence parody of academic discourse in particular and of pedantry in general, laden with devalued forms of scholarly convention: • obeisant acknowledgment of supposedly renowned predecessors (Puncher, Wattmann, Belcher, Fartov, Testew, Cunard, Steinweg, Peterman) as well as apparently respected institutions of higher learning; • a postulated “given” that is in fact unverified and unverifiable (the existence of a personal God); • pseudoscience, particularly anthropometry, the nineteenth-century study of the human body in order to measure and assess its average dimensions and the proportionality of its parts; its practitioners took particular interest in differences in the body at various ages—and among different races and social classes; • arcane, ill-fitting, and perhaps meaningless allusions (Miranda from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the death of Bishop Berkeley); • lists of irrelevant topics and diversions (tennis, hockey, golf, football, cycling); • self-evident self-affirmations (“I resume”); • rhetorical questions and false certainties (“who can doubt it”); • tergiversation (“but not so fast”); • Latinate nonsense (“quaquaquaqua”).

Surely every student (and certainly every professional academic) has read—or, worse, sat through classes or lectures that featured—such pretentious presentations of pseudoknowledge. Such disquisitions were a

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popular feature in music-hall entertainments in the early twentieth century as well, often featuring pseudo-professors or politicians. Among betterknown more recent comedians who have continued this satirical tradition are Sid Caesar, Groucho Marx (particularly as a college professor in Horsefeathers), and the American satirist “Professor” Irwin Corey, selfstyled “world’s foremost authority” on virtually everything. Much of the humor throughout Lucky’s speech is distinctly scatological, however: the names Fartov and Belcher suggest scholarship emanating from the respective ends of the alimentary canal; the “caca” concealed in the prolongation of “academy” is a French term for shit, while the “popo” is nearly its English counterpart in the word “anthropometry”; “quaqua” is perhaps its Latinate form. By implication, scholarly discourse is literally full of shit—a long-familiar and oft-repeated allegation, seldom so comically expressed. Apart from the aforementioned Fartov and Belcher, the scholars’ names are rife with anxiety-provoking academic implications, a professorial examining committee from hell: Testew (“test you”), Cunard (a pun on “canard,” a false, unfounded story or a distraction), Wattmann (an accusatory or incredulous “what, man?”). Though sometimes compared to the nonsense verse of Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky,” Lucky’s speech is Beckett’s closest approximation of the multilingual free play and seemingly endless parodic inventiveness (bordering on unintelligibility) that characterize James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. Notwithstanding its satirical impulses and its exuberant linguistic play, Lucky’s speech contains many of the most significant (and most serious) themes of the play. The subject of the accumulated scholarship in question is philosophy and, more specifically, modern theology—the credibility of which, post-Holocaust, had been challenged, doubted, and denied as never before, especially in Europe, where long-respected institutions, like their bombed-out edifices, were seen to be in ruin. Rubble-strewn battlefields, former no-man’s-lands, and blasted heaths seemed no more than wastelands and empty plains, vistas of nothingness as bleak as the setting of Waiting for Godot. Evidence of heretofore unimaginable carnage and attempted genocide forcibly redefined the limits of human depravity and hatefulness, and the Judeo-Christian belief in a personal and caring God who directs and sometimes intervenes in human affairs became, for many, difficult if not impossible to sustain. Thus the “given” of Lucky’s philosophical spiel is in fact not a “given” any longer, and all of the theological speculation based on it may be nothing more than speculative selfdistraction in an infinite existential void of time and space that, by definition, cares nothing about whatever human beings choose to inscribe and project upon it. If so, religion itself is nothing more than a canard—a

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superstition, as Nietzsche had contended in the nineteenth century, and/or an opiate for the masses as Karl Marx had claimed, distracting them with pipe dreams of an otherworldly abode of bliss while keeping them docile and submissive in the here and now. Far from being mankind’s most profound probing of human experience and the meaning of existence, as its practitioners tirelessly proclaim, theological speculation then becomes little more than gibberish itself, scholiastic and sciosophic rather than scholarly, as irrelevant and incoherent as Lucky’s speech—and eminently disregardable, totally and quite literally absurd. The three traits that have for centuries traditionally defined the Christian God—omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence (all-knowingness, allpowerfulness, and presence everywhere)—have been replaced in Lucky’s discourse by three bleaker traits, perhaps better attuned to the postHolocaust age: • apathia, which means indifference (here, to human suffering), a form of lethargy or uninterestedness (apathy); • athambia, which is imperturbability; • aphasia, which denotes a loss of ability to articulate ideas in any form (including, presumably, burning bushes, pillars of fire, writing on stone tablets, or whatever).

Such a God, therefore, is by (re)definition unreachably remote, unresponsive to prayer, unconcerned about human affairs, unmoved by human misery, and uninclined to intervene in even the direst circumstances—basically an absence rather than a presence, and hardly worth worshiping (or even worth waiting for) if, unknowably, he exists at all. While the Belchers and Fartovs of the world continue their ultimately useless speculations, the world goes on, without preexistent plan or ascertainable meaning, as human beings waste away (subject, like all things, to the physical law of entropy) and pine for what is not: a transcendent purpose in life; a cosmic plan; a personal, caring, and compassionate God. Within Lucky’s discourse there is also a decidedly apocalyptic strain, alongside an emphasis on the arbitrariness of it all. Although even the thus-redefined God is said to love man, there are alleged to be exceptions of unknown numbers, for whose exclusion there are no known reasons; this arbitrariness echoes biblical references to God’s ultimately separating the sheep from the goats, the blessed from the unblessed, the saved from the damned. Lucky subsequently evokes not only the fires of hell but the fiery firmaments of a prophesied day of doom, and he notes that despite apparent progress in human physicality (sports, nutrition, plumbing, and

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so on), humanity continues to waste away. With increasing incoherence and repetition of equivocating phrases, Lucky seems to foretell a time of coldness, darkness, stones, tears, and a mysterious skull at Connemara— all of which contrast with heavens of implacably placid blue. (Connemara, a western region of Galway in Ireland, has many stone walls that demarcate its rather bleak and Godotesque landscape, a photograph of which can be found in Eoin O’Brien’s The Beckett Country: Samuel Beckett’s Ireland [Dublin: The Black Cat Press, 1986], 307; the skull is, of course, an age-old symbol of mortality and futility, a memento mori). Lucky’s speech itself finally deteriorates into an incoherent repetition of earlier phrases—but does so as a result of the violent reaction of his onstage audience, indicated in a series of stage directions that precede the tirade in the text rather than interrupting it. Though Vladimir and Estragon begin with respectful attentiveness, by the end they have joined Pozzo in violent protest as Pozzo pulls on the rope; eventually all three gang-tackle him, despite which he continues to shout his increasingly incoherent message. If his apocalyptic vision is (unknowably) a prophecy, Lucky is a prophet without honor; if it is merely shards of earlier unfulfilled visions, as-triteas-dire warnings, and doomsday clichés, his performance is brought to a decidedly unmerciful end. Pozzo too is very conscious of self-presentation as a form of performance. Particularly when addressing Vladimir and Estragon, he often adopts the tone of a circus ringmaster: he tells his onstage audience explicitly how to respond, when and where to direct their attention, and even for how long to look at the sky. Yet once they have obeyed, he becomes a grotesquely pompous and mannered actor. His effete ritual of positioning the stool (or having Lucky do so) before seating himself, his insistence that they request more than once that he sit down, his use of an atomizer to hydrate his throat before speaking, and many other of his ostentatious affectations are self-styled signifiers of class and gentility, phony attempts at self-definition through pretentious self-assertion. His lyrical description of the twilight and nightfall is self-consciously a performance “set-piece,” following which he hints for favorable reviews from them—and then milks them for even more reassurance and pseudocandor about his delivery of it. Wanting to “give” his audience something more, Pozzo stops short of offering money (which Estragon is brazen enough to suggest). Instead, Lucky’s brief and agonized dance, a form of movement that suggests to Vladimir the effects of constipation, is offered as a theatrical lagniappe prior to the servant’s main “act,” thinking. Before this performance, however, Pozzo again acts like a theatrical director, pointlessly insisting on positioning the performer exactly before

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the show can begin (a theatrical concern known as “blocking,” the very precise onstage arrangement of actors). Much of the physical comedy that follows Lucky’s collapse after his tirade of “thinking” has its origins in early film comedies. The prolonged struggles of Vladimir, Estragon, and Pozzo to return the exhausted and newly limber Lucky to his feet constitute a recognizably Chaplinesque silent-movie comedy routine. Like Chaplin’s adversaries in many of his short films (especially those featuring the comic foil Mack Swain), Pozzo is typically played by an actor with a menacing, physically domineering presence—just as Swain towers over Chaplin’s famous “little tramp.” The sequence in which Pozzo ill-manneredly devours the chicken as Vladimir and Estragon look on may have an antecedent in Chaplin’s His Trysting Place, in which Swain’s character devours a bowl of soup as Chaplin’s character looks on (illustrated in Walter Kerr’s The Silent Clowns [New York: Knopf, 1975], 76). Similarly, the sequence in which Pozzo stomps violently on Lucky’s bowler hat to prevent further thinking has its origins in the countless physically expressed frustrations of bowler-hatted Laurel and Hardy. Following predictably ostentatious farewells, Pozzo and Lucky depart in much the same way that they arrived, leaving Vladimir and Estragon much as they were before as well. For the audience in the theater, their ensuing conversation further obfuscates any certainties about what just happened. Whether he is simply bringing up a conversational cliché to fill the silence or whether he actually remembers something, Vladimir remarks on how the recently departed pair have changed, implying that they have thus been encountered before—and that he and Pozzo were pretending not to recognize one another. He later suggests that they were not the same people as before, though he believes that all things change except themselves. This introduces, in simple terms, the ages-old paradox of personal mutability: the physical body changes over any period of time, of whatever duration, though we at least tell ourselves that we are the same self and identity that we have always been, that there is a continuity of self that defies omnipresent change. As usual, Estragon gets distracted from such sophisticated speculation by a pain in his foot—even if it’s not the one that was hurting earlier. The arrival of the boy and his conversation with Vladimir and Estragon also reveal far less than would seem to be the case. The few “facts” that get established during the entire conversation are rarely volunteered by the boy himself. Whether from politeness, bafflement, fear, shyness, or merely a desire to please the adults, he tersely assents to claims that Vladimir’s questions suggest. This practice, known in legal circles as “leading the witness” (and colloquially as “putting words in his mouth”), consti-

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tutes an inadmissible form of evidence. Thus it is Vladimir, not the boy himself, who asserts that he (the boy) was frightened by the presence of Pozzo, Lucky, and the whip; the child offers only terse assent. Almost always, the boy’s negative replies come primarily in response to questions containing negative verbs, and his affirmative answers are elicited when the question has a positive verb. Possibly the boy is telling the adults only what he thinks they want to hear. Estragon, exasperated, contends that the answers are lies. Coming in the midst of 11 questions whose answers are simply “Yes,” “No,” or “I don’t know,” the boy’s singlesentence statement that Godot will not come today but “surely” will come tomorrow is his sole nonsimple sentence. The fact that he refers to them by the wrong name, asking for a Mister Albert, suggests that his message may not even be meant for them. Most of the details of the boy’s relationship with Godot are also introduced into the conversation by Vladimir, with the boy again replying in accordance with the positive or negative nature of the question’s verb. In response to the few questions that cannot be answered “Yes” or “No,” he does claim that he tends goats, that Godot beats the boy’s brother (who tends sheep) but not the boy himself, and that he (the boy) sleeps in a loft. That the sheep have been separated from the goats has clear biblical resonance (Matthew 25:32), again suggesting the arbitrariness of grace and an ultimate irremediable divine judgment, but it can as easily refer only to common barnyard animals without metaphoric equivalence. The boy claims not to know whether or not he is happy—perhaps because that question requires an inference or judgment about a subjective state rather than a verifiable statement of objective fact. The boy’s conversational abilities, such as they are, seem strictly limited to the latter. When the boy departs, Vladimir and Estragon know little more than they did before—but they resolve to wait again the next day, hoping that it will be better. Night falls abruptly, exactly as Pozzo said it would: at last somebody is proven right about something. Estragon remarks that he has often compared himself to Christ—implying that his (and Vladimir’s) prolonged, agonizing, not-yet-fulfilled existence in the suspended time of waiting can be seen metaphorically as a crucifixion, albeit slower than the Roman method. The first act concludes with a reaffirmation of now familiar themes: the length of time that they have been together (said to be 50 years), an account of an attempted suicide by Estragon that was thwarted by Vladimir, speculation about whether their lives would have been better apart, and an affirmation of the uncertainty of everything. In a famous final act of irresolution, they say that they intend to go but do not move—emphasizing yet again the disparities between words and deeds,

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intentions and actions, mind and body. Like Vladimir and Estragon, these pairs are together but separate; their irreconcilability and inseparability epitomize the general paralysis that besets and defines their lives. When the second act begins, the presence of a few leaves on the tree denotes the passage of time; nothing else has changed, although stage directions indicate it is the next day. Vladimir’s opening song about a dog begins an endlessly repeatable cycle, an infinite narrative regress that is thus not unlike their days of waiting for Godot. Estragon’s beatings by unknown assailants for unknown reasons reoccurred during the night, and he is peeved that his companion would sing when he might have been gone forever. Resuming a theme introduced with the boy in the previous act, Vladimir and Estragon agree to say that they are happy, whether they are or not: the dichotomy between words and actions is no less than that between words and an unassayable inner state. Perhaps, as in Anton Chekhov’s play The Three Sisters, happiness is always presumed to be elsewhere and sometime other than in the present. Their words ring hollow, even when said by mutual agreement and for mutual reassurance, in a present condition that Estragon compares to a muckheap—a dunghill, in other words, like that to which Job found recourse amid what were, to him, similarly inexplicable afflictions (Job was, of course, unaware that he was the subject of a cosmic bet—a bit of divine divertissement, a relief perhaps from eternal ennui). Their conversation, like that of most friends of long acquaintance, soon returns to the longestablished topics, although theirs are no more verifiable (and no less disputatious) than in the first act. Estragon’s memory is more problematic than the day before: he remembers neither Lucky nor Pozzo by name (abstract), though he does recall the discarded chicken bones and the kick to his shins (physical). Similarly, he denies having ever been in Macon country or anywhere other than where he is at present, as though he lives only in the physical here and now. Vladimir is of little help himself, however, finding himself able to recall neither the name of a man for whom he claims they worked picking grapes nor the name of the place where they allegedly did so. Their discussion of the plight of the dead—arguably the most poetic bit of dialogue in the entire play (40a and b)—recapitulates motifs from a number of Beckett’s other works. Like the souls whom Dante encounters in traversing the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso in The Divine Comedy, Beckett’s dead speak freely about themselves, but their sufferings tend to be far less physical and far more solipsistic than those in traditional conceptions of the afterlife: they are confined within themselves, seemingly endlessly, longing for the silence of oblivion but unable to stop “speak-

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ing” even if they are heard only by themselves. Such is exactly the plight of the narrator of Beckett’s novel The Unnamable, apparently long-dead and confined within a large vessel resembling the canopic jars of ancient Egypt (from which effigies of heads protrude). Among the earliest-known forms of burial urns, these are also used onstage in Beckett’s play titled Play, whose three characters speak rapidly and endlessly of their earthly adultery, though each remains unaware of the others’ proximity. In contrast to more exotic and baroque torments in Dante’s version of hell or the standard fire and brimstone of terror-inducing sermons, Beckett’s realm of the afterdeath is closer to the biblical realm of Sheol, a place of unrelenting darkness inhabited by nebulously defined shades who, however they pass their time, have clearly not yet achieved the desideratum of complete nonexistence. Thus in Beckett’s works, hell is not “other people,” as Jean-Paul Sartre famously claimed in his play No Exit; instead, it is the unrelenting drone of words that make up consciousness, endlessly iterated to no apparent point for no apparent audience but the solipsistic self. A landscape representing this plight was inserted by director Anthony Minghella in his film of Play for the Beckett on Film series of DVDs: across a hilly terrain crowded with such urns, confined speakers mutter rapidly and endlessly of themselves for themselves alone. Whereas Minghella shows the characters in broad daylight, their counterparts on stage are surrounded by darkness and speak only when a light from above shines on their faces, prompting and compelling their words. In the theatrical version, each is apparently unaware that others like themselves are in fact nearby. Such endlessly self-whispered self-redaction (albeit without the canopic jars) is the reality that Vladimir and Estragon evoke as a sound hearable in silence, voices rustling in unintelligible terms about their seemingly incomprehensible plight. In contrast to that, passing the time in reasonably good if sometimes quarrelsome company while waiting for Godot may not seem so bad. At least the shared silence can be filled with conversation, even if it is only banter and blather with no particular point or resolution—as they themselves point out. Estragon’s boots, which may or may not be the same ones he wore the day before, provide one form of distraction: that they fit better (or are perhaps too large) may be blamed either on the feet or the boots themselves, as in the first act. Perhaps someone unknown substituted these for those he wore yesterday, which Estragon claims were a different color: once again, the issue is the continuity of the world despite (or amid) change. As with Winnie’s medicine in Happy Days, which is always mysteriously replenished, Vladimir and Estragon somehow manage to find just enough to persevere but never a surfeit of anything. As they continue to wait, they

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fall back on familiar resources: banter and mutual recrimination, threats to leave and reconciliation. Estragon’s nap yields only a nightmare, but the discovery of Lucky’s hat provides a distraction through a protracted and intricate exchange of his hat with their own (a vaudeville routine). Even a false alarm of Godot’s impending arrival helps to fill the time, as do physical exercises—including a yogalike “tree” position, which, like all other things except waiting, they cannot long sustain. The return of Pozzo and Lucky, more than anything earlier in the play, embodies the arbitrariness of life in an indifferent universe. Whereas previous examples of it had been historical and textual (the crucified thieves), the sudden blindness of Pozzo and the muteness of Lucky emphasize life’s randomness and purposelessness. As Thomas Hardy wrote in “Hap” (The Complete Poems of Thomas Hardy, ed. James Gibson [New York: Macmilliam Publishing Co., 1982], 9) “Crass Casualty…/ And dicing Time” (mere chance) have “cast…pain” across their strange “pilgrimage” (11–14) in a universe seemingly without even a sadistic or malign divinity presiding over it. Although Estragon suggests that Pozzo may have gained insight into the future along with the blindness (evoking the image of Teiresias in Greek mythology, the blind “seer”/prophet in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex), their universe provides no such evenly balanced compensations; in fact, Pozzo claims that his blindness has also cost him his sense of time. There is also no poetic justice in their reversal of fortune: although the formerly arrogant and lordly master has now received a comeuppance of sorts, becoming virtually helpless and having to be led by the rope that was formerly his implement of oppression, his long-suffering servant has received yet another undeserved affliction for no apparent reason. Pozzo’s cries beseeching help and pity go unheeded, locally as well as cosmically, despite his writhing, groaning, and beating the ground. Vladimir, true to form, theorizes and philosophizes (in his most eloquent speeches in the play) but takes no action—which is itself an action that seems to constitute an implicit assertion of the irrelevance and moral bankruptcy of philosophy and, indeed, of eloquence itself, of words without deeds. However, like Lucky’s tirade in the first act, this timeconsuming philosophizing is more systematic—and more significant— than it first appears. Finding no inherent reason to come to Pozzo’s aid, Vladimir and Estragon (to a lesser extent) consider a number of options, each of which has distinct philosophical implications: • Leaving: the ultimate noncommitment and unconcern; it is more a matter of indifference than selfishness, since there is not presumed to be something better elsewhere.

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SAMUEL BECKETT’S WAITING FOR GODOT • Anticipation of an as-yet-unproffered reward, a hoped-for form of noblesse oblige: perhaps Pozzo will bestow another chicken bone, as he did the day before. Faith is the evidence of things unseen. • Conditional beneficence: a quid pro quo relationship; asking for a bone and helping only on promise of receipt of it (or actual receipt of it first). • Opportunistic violence: beating Lucky in his sleep, perhaps in vengeance for the kick Estragon received previously; vengeance and vindictiveness, exploitation and the (sadistic) enjoyment of literally ruthless power over another. Social Darwinism, the social ethos of the “survival of the fittest” and the ruthlessness of the jungle, is implicit here—so is Thomas Hobbes’s characterization of life as nasty, brutish, and short. • Capitalism: each “takes advantage” of the other in a kind of amoral mutual economic exploitation. The principle of supply and demand is amply illustrated here, as is the basis of the “social contract” between the proletariat (laboring help-providers) and the bourgeoisie (the capital- and wage-provider). Help, like everything else, is a commodity whose value and acquisition can and must be negotiated; it is never to be “given,” always to be “sold.” It is, therefore, available only for a price—emphatically not because there is any moral imperative to come to another’s aid. Pozzo offers first one hundred francs, then two hundred francs. This tendering and proffering is a more sophisticated form of conditional beneficence; the stakes are now higher than chicken bones and the technique more refined than bartering; nevertheless, simply leaving (“walking away”) remains an ever-viable alternative and an implicit threat. • Altruism: the radical notion that something might be more important than selfishness, namely a concern for the welfare of others. Here both Vladimir and Beckett are at their most poetic, humane, and eloquent—on the value of being needed, on cries addressed to all mankind (which all too often go unheeded), on the blessedness of having a purpose, even if theirs consists only of waiting for Godot. Significantly, Vladimir’s evocation of altruism is based in humanism rather than in religion: there is no suggestion whatsoever of a divinely ordained or mandated impulsion to care for one’s fellow human beings. In a universe where God is defined by apathia, athambia, and aphasia, of course there would and could be none. • Pragmatism: the rejection of theory and precedent in favor of practicalities and expediency; the belief that the meaning of a course of action is to be found in its observable consequences. Notwithstanding the eloquence of Vladimir’s humanitarian idealism, his final deliberation before taking action is less idealized than altruism and less selfish than capitalism: doing some work (helping Pozzo) would at least temporarily alleviate the boredom entailed in waiting for Godot. As such, it is a rare opportunity, not to be missed. This echoes the contention of Martin in the final chapter of Voltaire’s Candide (1759) that work without speculating,

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reasoning, and theorizing is the only way to make life endurable; as the novel’s wise Turkish dervish has advised, work prevents boredom, the first and arguably foremost of the three evils that he decries (the others are vice and poverty). It is also, famously, the counsel of Thomas Carlyle in Sartor Resartus (1833), who found in it the necessary means of overcoming the nihilism of an empty universe, the “everlasting Nay.”

Within a scene lasting approximately 15 minutes onstage and occupying 16 pages of text (49b to 57a in the American edition, from Lucky and Pozzo’s fall to the moment when both have gotten up), in simple yet often poetic language, based on a common and readily comprehensible predicament (“I’ve fallen and I can’t get up”), Beckett has presented seven distinct alternatives to one of the most vexing philosophical problems of humankind: how we define the basis of actions taken in relation to the needs of others. Typically, however, Vladimir’s final motive is indeterminable. Perhaps it is pragmatism, altruism, or capitalism, or a combination of all three—but the last words he hears before helping Pozzo is the repeated offer of two hundred francs. As always in Beckett’s play, such profundity is accompanied—and, arguably, deliberately undercut—by very physical comedy, a reminder of the unexalted body that is inextricably conjoined with the self-exalting mind. The difficulties that Vladimir and Estragon have in their attempts to raise Pozzo and Lucky from the ground are basic slapstick shtick from the silent movie era, too often underplayed in production—perhaps because, ideally, it requires particularly limber-limbed actors as Pozzo and Lucky. Pozzo’s fart (too often unheard by the theater audience during a production) might well serve as an opinion on the philosophically “gassy” deliberations that have forestalled his aid, and he does not even try to conceal his relief when his erstwhile rescuer Estragon, with his offensive body odor, even momentarily moves away. Vladimir, in contrast, stinks from the mouth—and not only, presumably, when he theorizes. Beckett’s recurrent use of the grotesque, malodorous, or deformed body subverts all traditional priorities and pieties, including those that privilege mind over body, spirituality over physicality; this particular type of comedy has been best defined by Mikhail Bakhtin in his discussion of the history of laughter in Rabelais and His World (trans. Hélène Iswolsky [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984], 59–144). When Pozzo and Lucky eventually regain enough equilibrium to stand, Pozzo reiterates a familiar Beckettian theme as the pair prepares to depart: the necessity of simply “going on,” however dire the circumstances. The phrase, most famously (and lengthily) discussed at the end of The Unnamable (1953), denotes both persistence and subsistence and is reiterated

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even in his final prose work, Worstward Ho (1985). Like the simple words “they endured” with which William Faulkner concludes The Sound and the Fury (1929), Beckett’s “going on” implicitly affirms a basic determination to withstand whatever adversity life and an uncaring universe manage to provide—despite the fact that we have little choice in the matter. Within that context, the chronology of the mishap becomes largely irrelevant, as Pozzo contends during his final explosion of temper: it all just happens “one day” in the interval between womb and tomb. Combined with the many uncertainties and indeterminacies of Vladimir and Estragon’s own experience in waiting for Godot, Pozzo’s angry assertion characterizes the play’s entire conception of time as somehow suspended, immeasurable, and/or irrelevant, defined through the absence of events and measurable duration. Without any expression of gratitude (and certainly without paying the two hundred francs), Pozzo and Lucky depart: Pozzo has both the whip and the rope in his hands, and he discloses that Lucky’s bag is full of sand, making it yet another pointlessly heavy burden, one more arbitrary infliction of cruelty as an exercise of power. Shortly after leaving the stage they are heard to collapse again; presumably, as Pozzo has said, they will simply wait to get up until they can. Such an intermittent journey, alternating movement (which coincides with the narrator’s words) and collapse (the silence of incapacitation) across a seemingly endless terrain of mire, would later become the subject of Beckett’s novel How It Is (1964). Left to themselves after the departure of Pozzo and Lucky, Vladimir and Estragon further complicate the epistemological uncertainties that are central to the play. Asked by Estragon whether Pozzo may have been Godot, Vladimir is increasingly unsure whether he may have been. Estragon resumes the struggle with his boot that began the first act, returning the play to its status quo ante; he then dozes off again, as Vladimir muses on sleeping while another suffers (echoing Matthew 26:38–46, in which Christ’s disciples, told to be watchful, instead slumber as he prays at Gethsemane). He then speculates that he too is asleep, implying that his current existence is but a dream. His observation that he feels himself being observed reinforces the play’s metatheatricality, though it has cosmic implications as well. Like the presence of the monitory bell in Happy Days, which regulates the literally earth-bound Winnie in her sleeping and waking, Vladimir’s intuition (which may or may not be reliable) may or may not suggest the presence of unknown observers, presumably a “higher” order of being—but if they are there, they show no compassion and take no overt interest, and they are certainly disinclined to intervene. Such mysterious beings are postulated (and later doubted) as recorders and/or monitors of the utterances of both The Unnamable and the narrator

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of How It Is. In actuality, however, Vladimir is being observed as he says that—by the boy who approaches with a message from Godot, another and yet the same. The boy, like the message, is “another and yet the same”: he claims not to be the boy who came yesterday. But like his (alleged) brother, he replies to Vladimir’s statements rather than offering much information of his own. Once again, most of the time (but not always), statements with negative verbs elicit negative responses while those with positive verbs evoke “yes sir.” The boy’s remark that Godot “does nothing” is a sign of godlike apathia and athambia, perhaps, but it may equally possibly denote mere human indolence (or affluence). Godot’s allegedly white beard evokes countless artists’ images of the Christian God (not least Michelangelo’s on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel) but is certainly insufficient evidence to equate the two. Vladimir’s message for the boy to take to Godot is merely a confirmation that the boy has indeed seen him, and a promise that he will not return tomorrow denying the existence of events today. He gets no such reassurance as the boy runs away. Estragon has slept through the entire encounter; there is no witness who can confirm anything. The end of the second act recapitulates the ending of the first, albeit with variations: the moon again rises suddenly, and Vladimir and Estragon resolve to wait again tomorrow after once more considering suicide, this time using a belt instead of a rope. Another bit of slapstick comedy undercuts the solemnity of that resolve: Estragon’s pants fall down when he takes off his belt. Their motive in waiting is articulated with unusual clarity: they fear punishment if they do not keep the appointment and anticipate being “saved” if Godot arrives. They are thus motivated by what behaviorist psychologists from Anton Pavlov to B. F. Skinner have characterized as negative and positive reinforcement; for whatever reason and by whatever means, Vladimir and Estragon have been so conditioned to wait that external reinforcement is no longer even required. Those who study the psychology of religion find its origins in exactly such a combination of fear of punishment and a hoped-for reward. Although they resolve to go, as the play ends they remain quite still, suspended between the words and the deed, between intent and action, between promise and fulfillment. As they were in the beginning, they are now and quite possibly ever shall be: defining themselves through their inaction and ever-deferred expectation, sustaining themselves in their companionship, maintaining themselves between hope and despair, forever unable to attain assurance about much of anything, world and words without end. Their plight is perhaps best summarized by the melancholy

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Jacques in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, when he recalls the words of a wise fool he met, who had made him laugh: And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, And then from hour to hour we rot and rot; And thereby hangs a tale. (2.7.26–28)

In its wisdom and its foolery, its melancholy and its laughter, just such a tale is Waiting for Godot.

Chapter 4

INTELLECTUAL CONTEXTS

Like the works of his friend and mentor James Joyce, Samuel Beckett’s writings manifest their author’s extensive knowledge of literature, philosophy, theology, and popular culture as well. Nevertheless, their styles differ markedly: Joyce’s writings involve elaborate and complex patterns embedded in the real, with modern instances representing not only themselves but also devalued counterparts of things now irretrievably gone, lost into the past; thus, Leopold Bloom, an advertising salesman wandering the streets of Dublin in 1904, is (unbeknownst to himself) the devalued counterpart of the ancient Greek adventurer Ulysses. As a minimalist, Beckett eschews such specificity or one-to-one equation; his allusions suggest without elaboration, insistence, or final certainty about their meaning. As the actor Jack MacGowran once observed, “The key word in all Beckett’s writings [is] ‘perhaps’” (qtd. in Deirdre Bair, Samuel Beckett: A Biography [New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978], 555). THE CHRISTIAN CONTEXT Although Beckett adamantly and consistently repudiated any equation of Godot and Christ, many biblical allusions are unmistakably present in the play—although, when examined from an absurdist or even objective perspective (apart from the too-facile homilies with which they are often familiarly associated), they are testaments of doubt rather than affirma-

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tions of faith. With an emphasis on uncertainty and unknowability, they are deliberately disconcerting—failing to reassure, refusing to uplift, offering nothing to console the characters or their audience. The Accounts of the Crucified Thieves In Luke 23:39–43, one of the two thieves crucified alongside Christ taunts him, asking him to save both himself and them. The other thief rebukes the first, advising him to fear God. He then says, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom” and is assured by Christ that “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” Though long cited as a reassuring example of divine grace and the potential for redemption even at the last minute of life, from an absurdist perspective it is troublesome in that (a) it raises issues of divine justice and its seeming arbitrariness, and (b) it privileges words rather than deeds, since the thieves are by their own admission receiving “the due reward” for their crimes, by then-current Roman standards at least. The second thief is no less guilty and no less heinous than the first, but he loses his chance for eternal bliss through silence, apathy, or inaction—a particularly Beckettian fate, brought about by an unwillingness or perhaps an inability to speak, an absence of the all-crucial right words at the all-crucial right moment. Nothing else, apparently, has ultimately mattered. The reasons for his silence remain unknown: Was he, perhaps, too stoical? Was he intellectually unconvinced by his counterpart’s admonition? Was he unwilling to grovel or to abase himself even further? Was he unable to mutter the requisite profession of faith, distracted by if not already unconscious from the pain of crucifixion? Was he a victim, then, of mere bad timing? Was he indeed (unknowably) already dead? To Beckett, the plight of the crucified thieves offered an unreassuring moral: “Do not despair—one of the thieves was saved; do not presume—one of the thieves was damned.” According to The Grove Companion to Samuel Beckett, ed. C. J. Ackerley and S. E. Gontarski (New York: Grove Press, 2004), the sentiment about the two thieves “that [Beckett] attributes to Augustine…cannot be found there” but instead “derives from Robert Greene’s ‘Repentance’” (31). The believer, then, is cautioned against—and suspended between—presumption (of salvation) and despair, subsisting in a lifelong state of uncertainty and unknowingness that is the epitome of the absurd. The opportunity to say or not say the requisite words, whatever they are, may not come until literally the last minute of life. In the interim, presumably, one can only wait and seek ways to pass the time, exactly as Vladimir and Estragon do. The other three gospels do not include the same details found in Luke’s account, but Vladimir’s claim that two of the gospels do not mention

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thieves (9b) is factually inaccurate. Mark 15:27–32 says that both thieves “reviled him,” leaving them, presumably, to an identical eternal plight since the key words seem to have remained unuttered. Matthew 27:38–44 indicates that both thieves joined passersby in mocking Christ, “cast[ing] the same [words] in his teeth.” John 19:18–33 mentions only “two other[s] with him, on either side one,” not characterizing them as thieves at all and not suggesting that either said anything—but adding that Roman soldiers broke the legs of both when they were found still living after Christ “was dead already.” Such silences and incongruities further complicate the issues that perplex Beckett’s characters: Why should one account be privileged above the others? Why is the account in Luke the only one that is well known? Do words indeed matter more than deeds? What is one to do, and how can one know? Separating the Sheep from the Goats Foretelling the final judgment at the end of the world, Christ says in Matthew 25:31–41 that “When the Son of man [Christ himself] shall come in all his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then…shall be gathered [the people of] all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed…, [and] inherit the kingdom that was prepared for you from the foundation of the world…. Then shall he also say to them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” The fate of the sheep and the goats is precisely that of the crucified thieves: one group will be saved and the other damned, at literally the last moment of their lives. Until then, apparently, they can only wait for this grand finale of the cosmic drama—the moment at which, it seems, words will not matter. Indeed, the text in Matthew explicitly bases salvation on deeds, not words: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, taking in the homeless, visiting the sick and imprisoned. It therefore seems to directly contradict the experience of the thief in Luke, who was redeemed by words, not deeds. Although the text’s recommended standards of charity and compassion are unambiguous, on closer examination its imagery and other details through which they are expressed become increasingly problematic. Whereas the righteous and the unrighteous are defined by their actions and choices, the sheep and the goats are not: if you’re a sheep, you’re a sheep all the way, from the first bleat of life to the last dying day. Choice, therefore, is not an issue. If the kingdom was indeed prepared “for you [the sheep] from the foundation of the world,” was their sheepness therefore

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foreknown, predetermined, or predestined in some arbitrary way that precludes any element of choice? If one is a goat, through no fault of one’s own, is one’s entire existence therefore futile and doomed? Does the final, perhaps arbitrary adjudication of rewards and punishments betoken the presence of a cosmic system of justice—or its total absence in a system in which the condemned, the (scape)goats, never had even the slightest chance? If the latter, the entire cosmic system may well be (or seem) quite fundamentally absurd. Other biblical contexts for Waiting for Godot are more oblique, remarkably suggestive in their parallels with key aspects of Beckett’s play but not directly quoted or referred to in the play itself. The Disciples on the Road to Emmaus According to Luke 24:13–31, three days after the Crucifixion of Christ, Cleopas and another disciple who remains unnamed (though he is not one of the original group) journeyed to Emmaus, a village near Jerusalem. “While they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them. But their eyes were holden that they should not know him.” (In The Interpreters’ Bible, “holden” is defined as “supernaturally dulled”). Feigning not to know why they seem so sad, Christ induces them to narrate the events of recent days, including the Resurrection. When they have finished, Christ addresses them as “fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken” and expounds to them “in all the scriptures the things concerning himself,” still remaining incognito. As they approach the village, he seems ready to depart their company, but they constrain him to “abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them,” reenacting the Last Supper with them. Then, finally, “their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.” Like the account of the redeemed thief in Luke 23, this incident is unmentioned in the other gospels. The structural affinities between this narrative and Waiting for Godot are readily apparent, particularly in its first act, if Vladimir and Estragon are considered the devalued counterparts of the travelers. Alongside a road, the two clownish friends (“fools”) commune together and reason as best they can, baffled by the world, awaiting the arrival of an absent Other who will confirm their purpose, validate their faithfulness in keeping their appointment (if nothing else); in so doing, this now-absent Other will fulfill his promise, providing meaning for their lives. It is evening, and their day is far spent, though it is enlivened with the arrival of not one but two unknown companions, a lordly master and a suffering servant—phrases

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having particular biblical resonance as images of God and Christ, respectively. Beckett’s characters also partake in a sparse meal, being allowed at least to gnaw some discarded chicken bones, and the servant delivers a nearly incomprehensible quasi-theological speech to listeners, one of whom earlier claimed to recall little about the Bible other than the color of its maps (8b). There is, of course, no final disclosure or revelation of any kind. Although the facts of the narrative are clear, many of its theological implications can be disconcerting. Foremost among such problems are the purpose of the deception and the motivation for the disguise: Why would Christ choose to appear to his still-grieving disciples temporarily incognito? Why does he want to hear the story of his persecution and Crucifixion recounted? Why are the disciples berated as “fools,” particularly when their eyes are deliberately made “holden” through no fault of their own? Why are they tested over their (lack of) knowledge of the prophets’ writings? Would he have in fact departed if they had not implored the stranger to stay with them, if it had not been evening? If not, what was the purpose of the feint? Twenty centuries after the event, it is even more puzzling: If Christ could and did pass unrecognized even among those who knew and saw him on a personal and daily basis, what assurance can there be that believers two millennia later, knowing only images painted and sculpted centuries after the fact, would be able to recognize him under similar circumstances, with or without their eyes being “holden”? Will there be a similar quiz on the prophets, or anything else? What happens if it is failed, even by believers? How could the authentic manifestation of the Divine, if any, be differentiated from ordinary wayfarer—especially if not besought to abide at evening? Have there been other such manifestations, undetected? If so, to what purpose? If not, why not? In the absence of answers, what is one to do all day long? What can one do but wait? How can one know? The Last Words of Christ in the New Testament The final words of Christ on the cross are well known, translated as “It is finished” in English and “Consummatum est” in Latin; they are quoted in John 19:30 but not mentioned in any of the other gospels. Those were not, however, his last words on earth, which are variously quoted from a number of accounts of postresurrection appearances in the four gospels. None of these are his last words in the New Testament, however, which are to be found in Revelation 22:20, the penultimate verse of the entire Bible: “Surely I come quickly” affirms anew the “sure and certain hope of the Resurrection unto eternal life,” as described in the “Burial of the

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Dead” section of The Book of Common Prayer (1662, “final” version) and foretells the promised Second Coming, the final separation of the sheep (righteous) from the goats (unrighteous), the Last Judgment, and the Apocalypse. Yet, two millennia after the promise was made, both “surely” and “quickly” in Christ’s words now seem problematic: they are the basis for hope that is not only endlessly marketable but also as infinitely deferrable as the arrival of Godot. Awaiting the fulfillment of the promise and a vindication of belief, the faithful can only keep their appointment, waiting with (or without) hope for an arrival that may be deferred again for endless tomorrows, like that of Godot. Saturday Within the traditional description of Passion Week (the events preceding Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection), Saturday is unique: it occurs between the Crucifixion on Good Friday and the Resurrection on Easter Sunday. It is, to be more precise, the time between Christ’s death on the cross and the discovery of his absence from the tomb. For the disciples, it is a time when Christ is an absence rather than a presence, a time of uncertainty and grief if not despair. They are, in effect, in a unique state of suspension between promise and fulfillment, between faith and vindication, a time of not-knowing. Yet that state of suspension can equally well describe the time between the Ascension of Christ on the 40th day after Easter (Acts 1:2–11) and the still-pending finale, the reappearance foretold in the Book of Revelation. Metaphorically, therefore, it is always Saturday, post-Ascension, regardless of what day of the week it happens to be. Accordingly, significant events like Pozzo’s blindness and Lucky’s loss of speech happened merely “one day,” with no more specific identification needed. The state of non-knowingness is specifically sanctioned by Christ himself in Acts 1:6–7: when asked by the disciples when he intends to “restore again the kingdom to Israel[,]…he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.” They will, in effect, just have to wait. Beckett’s characters are not alone, then, in their multiple uncertainties, though they posit (uncertainly) that it is Saturday. For an example of this view of the play, see Anthony Burgess, “Enduring Saturday,” in Urgent Copy: Literary Studies (New York: Norton, 1968), 85–87. The Three Attributes of God Theologians have traditionally defined the Christian God by three attributes: omniscience (all-knowingness), omnipotence (all-powerfulness),

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and omnipresence (presence everywhere). In Lucky’s lengthy speech parodying modern theology, however, these attributes have been replaced by apathia (indifference to human suffering), athambia (imperturbability), and aphasia (inability to communicate). In effect, this redefinition reduces God to an absence rather than a presence in the world, although that absence may or may not be equated with nonexistence. Hamm in Endgame attempts to lead a prayer but abandons it in discouragement, asserting that “The bastard! He doesn’t exist!” (New York: Grove Press, 1958, 55). Winnie in Happy Days is far less certain about such matters, claiming that “prayers [are] perhaps not for naught” (New York: Grove Press, 1961, 12), although her subsequent remark on human existence is perhaps the quintessential Beckettian line: “How can one better magnify the Almighty than by sniggering with him at his little jokes, particularly the poorer ones?” (31). The “Suffering Servant” Long familiar as a reference to Christ, the phrase “suffering servant” is traced back to four servant songs in the Book of Isaiah: 42:1–4, 49:1–6, 50:4–9, and 52:13–53:12. The “servant” is said to have been “given…the tongue of the learned, that [he] should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary” (Isaiah 50:4), an apt description of Lucky’s tirade; like Lucky, too, “he shall not cry, nor lift up, nor [in the second act especially] cause his voice to be heard in the street” (Isaiah 42:2). The fourth and longest of the songs is also the most puzzling, with its emphasis on redemptive suffering—a theme also in the Book of Job. Christian theologians find there a prophecy of the suffering Messiah, while nonbelievers might contend that such “back-reading” is an example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy (the belief that because one action [or, here, one text] preceded another, the first was a cause [or a foretelling] of the second). In the New Testament, the relationship between that of servant and master is often used as a trope for that between the believer and his lord. Matthew 12:18–21 quotes from the first servant song above in reference to Christ, who himself claims that he came “not to be served but to serve” (Mark 10:45). A Proverb and a Quotation from Ecclesiastes Early in the first act, Vladimir partially quotes the first half of Proverbs 13:12, wondering who said it (8a). The verse is “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick,” a concise summary of the problem of deferred expectations that constitutes their plight. Nevertheless, they continue to face it together,

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for reasons that Ecclesiastes 4:9–10 makes clear: “Two are better than one…. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.” This verse, quoted at the Beckett Society’s memorial shortly after his death, was said to be the single verse of the Bible that Beckett most certainly believed. Whatever the usefulness of such Christian contexts, they emphatically do not make Waiting for Godot in any sense a Christian play. People throughout the world have seen, read, and appreciated Beckett’s work without recognizing any such allusions, and part of its phenomenal appeal is that its characters’ plight resonates with audiences in very diverse cultures. Accordingly, critical approaches that would make the play a form of allegory—equating Godot with the Christian God, for example—are simplistic, reductive, and parochial. Allegory fundamentally depends on a oneto-one equivalency (in that, for example, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown is literally a young, good man). The always-enigmatic Godot, about whom virtually nothing is certain, resists all such “totalizing” equivalencies, however intriguing various speculations (including, of course, Christian ones) may be. THE EXISTENTIAL CONTEXT When considered in terms of twentieth-century secular philosophy, however, Waiting for Godot seems particularly congruent with the tenets of existentialism, which gained particular popularity (and notoriety) in the decades following the end of World War II. Although its origins can be traced back at least to the mid-nineteenth century in the writings of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and the fiction of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, its foremost twentieth-century proponent was Jean-Paul Sartre, whose major work Being and Nothingness was published in 1943 in France and translated into English in 1956. Controversial because it was perceived as undermining the basis of Western philosophy since Plato and subverting virtually all traditional religions, existentialism asserted that human existence precedes any form of “essence.” There is, therefore, no preexistent spiritual realm, no soul, no god (Christian or otherwise), no cosmic compassion for or interest in human life, no afterlife, no eternal life, no heaven, no hell, no everlasting rewards or punishments for earthly deeds, no transcendence of worldly existence, no cosmic metanarrative, no angels and devils vying for human allegiance, no divine will, no salvation, no redemption (and no agency to perform it), no preset destiny, no inevitable fate, no revealed truth, and no immutable commandments or other permanent but externally imposed rules. All of that is simply human invention or, as

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Nietzsche termed it, “superstition”—a culturally determined and socially enforced fiction that, in its effectiveness, fundamentally constricts human freedom and allows human beings to evade their own responsibility for the conditions of existence throughout the world. The best concise introductory explanation of Sartre’s doctrine is his essay now titled “The Humanism of Existentialism” (sometimes also known as “Existentialism Is a Humanism” or “What Is Existentialism?”); it was originally published (including an interview labeled “Discussion”) as a 92-page book titled simply Existentialism (trans. Bernard Frechtman [New York: Philosophical Library, 1947]; rpt. in Essays in Existentialism, ed. Wade Baskin [New York: Carol Publishing Co., 1993] and elsewhere [n.b.: pages cited in this paragraph refer to the Carol Publishing Co. edition]). Although he briefly acknowledges the existence of Christian existentialism, he insists that “the first principle of [his own atheistic] existentialism” is that “there is no human nature since there is no God to conceive it. Not only is man what he conceives himself to be, but…man is nothing else but what he makes of himself” (36). Because each individual must bear full responsibility for whatever he or she becomes and whoever he or she is (since it is not predetermined, shaped by “God’s will,” or otherwise imposed from outside oneself), a constant state of anxiety is a defining human characteristic—the first of three that Sartre identifies. Many people, however, seek desperately to avoid taking such responsibility on themselves, palliating (however dishonestly) their anxiety and trying to place responsibility on anyone or anything other than themselves—an institution, a religion, even a Godot. Yet such an evasion is itself an act of self-definition, a free choice for which they remain responsible, even if they consider it an obligation by which they are bound or a worldview not of their own design (or, indeed, of their own liking). The second of Sartre’s defining characteristics is forlornness, a term that he traces particularly to the philosopher Martin Heidegger, by which he “mean[s] only that God does not exist and we have to face the consequences of this” (40). Among the foremost of these is that there are no transcendent or a priori standards of goodness, virtue, or justice, just as there is no God to conceive or sanction them; “as a result, man is forlorn, for neither within him nor without does he find anything to cling to” (41). Neither is there any core of “human nature” or other form of determinism; instead, “man is free, man is freedom” (41). In an empty universe that is devoid of meaning, purpose, design, or care—the “existential void,” represented by the coldness of interstellar space, the featureless Beckettian landscape, or simply darkness (in Beckett’s later stage works)—human beings are, Sartre contends, “alone, with no excuses” and “condemned to be free” (41). This situation

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leads to the third of his defining characteristics, despair, which is widely if wrongly alleged by Beckett’s detractors against his works as well. For Sartre, the term “means that we shall confine ourselves to reckoning only with what depends on our will, or on the ensemble of probabilities which make our action possible” (45–46). For Beckett’s characters in Waiting for Godot, however, it is precisely the “probabilities” that are uncertain, the decisive “action” that is impossible (other than waiting, which is, of course, itself an action), and the “will” (including but not limited to their consideration of suicide) that remains paralyzed. To Sartre, however, existentialism “can not be taken for a philosophy of quietism, since it defines man in terms of action; not for a pessimistic definition of man, for…man’s destiny is within himself” (50). An equally important Sartrean concept was set forth in Part One of Sartre’s major work Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology (1943; trans. by Hazel E. Barnes [New York: Philosophical Library, 1956], 3–70; rpt. in Essays in Existentialism, ed. Wade Baskin [New York: Carol Publishing Co., 1993], 147–186 [edition cited below]). As Vladimir and Estragon base their lives on the arrival of (and, indeed, the existence of) Godot, they exemplify what Sartre defines as “bad faith”; it prevents them from being “sincere” in Sartre’s sense, in that they cannot “be what [they are]” (172) because they are preoccupied with the transcendent Other (Godot) that remains an absence rather than a presence in their lives. Action, by which existential man defines himself, is therefore precluded or perhaps endlessly deferred; any suggestion that they might actually do something (even depart or commit suicide) is countered by yet another reiteration of the core fact of their existence, that they must continue to await Godot. If this motive is considered to be like one of the “drives” that Sartre describes, this enterprise of waiting is itself “realized [only] with [their] consent” (173). Furthermore, it must be realized that such drives “are not forces of nature” or innate within mankind; instead, the tramps “lend [the drives] their efficacy by [making] a perpetually renewed decision concerning their value” (173). Such is, in effect, the plot of Waiting for Godot. Moreover, Sartre asserts that “assuredly a man in bad faith who borders on the comic” is one who “acknowledg[es] all the facts which are imputed to him, [but still] he refuses to draw from them the conclusion which they impose,…the crushing view that his mistakes constitute for him a destiny” (174; Sartre’s emphasis). The facts, in Beckett’s play, are to be found in Vladimir’s admissions of multiple uncertainties—that they are in the right place, that it is the right day and time, even that they would recognize Godot if he came. The crushing conclusion is that their purpose is futile, that Godot will never come, or that their lives have been in vain.

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Against such despair, they continue, unreasonably and implicitly, to hope, to wait, and idly to pass the time—actions that do indeed “border on the comic” in a play that its author labeled a tragicomedy. Ultimately, however, as Sartre argues, “[t]he true problem of bad faith stems evidently from the fact that bad faith is faith” (181; Sartre’s emphasis). In other words, it bases one’s existence on a sustained belief in and sustaining reliance on someone or something external to the self. To a Sartrean existentialist, such a being that transcends and transforms lives is by definition nonexistent—and thus not fundamentally unlike Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, wish-granting genies, leprechauns, fairies, and all other such fictions, however pleasant, popular, entertaining, or consoling belief in them might be among the credulous. Accordingly, those who consider Waiting for Godot an existential play tend to assume (with often aggressive and sometimes condescending certainty) that Godot does not actually exist—that he will never come for the simple reason that he can never come, that there is no “he” to come, even if Vladimir and Estragon were to wait for all of eternity. In this view, the play’s many Christian allusions are little more than shards of a culture, signifiers of little or nothing, distractions or delusions that merely help to pass the time. Notwithstanding the striking congruencies between Sartre’s philosophy and Beckett’s play, to read Waiting for Godot as nothing more than a dramatic illustration of a Sartrean thesis is no less reductive and simplistic than to regard it as a modern-day version of Christian allegory; the committed atheist and the religious zealot have in common an unyielding ontological certainty, despite their irreconcilably opposite beliefs. Theirs is, however, a conviction that neither Beckett himself nor any of his characters seem to share. When, in 1937, Samuel Beckett was asked in a courtroom whether he was a Christian, a Jew, or an atheist, he replied, “None of the three” (qtd. in James Knowlson, Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett [New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996], 279); each, presumably, was too certain about everything for Beckett to affirm anything that they believed. Beckett’s characters, “non-know-er[s and] non-can-er[s]” as he himself described them (Israel Shenker, “An Interview with Beckett,” New York Times, 5 May 1956, section II: 1, 3), would be totally daunted by the prospect of having to be constantly committed (engagé, in existential terms), continually self-defining, and wholly responsible for both themselves and the state of the world, as Sartre’s ideology contends that they must be. Their concerns are far more mundane: hurting feet, lapsing memories, the scarcity of carrots, the protocols of hanging, their appointment with the unknown Godot. Although existential issues are unmistakably present

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throughout Waiting for Godot, they are no less the subject of skepticism and humor than the precepts of Christianity. THE ABSURD Absurdism in Beckett’s works is, in essence, existentialism played for laughs. Although absurdist literature does not begin with Samuel Beckett, he is widely known as its foremost embodiment, in large part because of the prominence given his plays in Martin Esslin’s The Theatre of the Absurd (New York: Vintage-Random, 1961), which gave the name to the works of a number of controversial and radically innovative playwrights who had become prominent in the decades following World War II. That experience—unprecedented in the horrors of the Holocaust that it had revealed, the carnage that the war had created, and the physical destruction and personal devastation that had been wrought across Europe and elsewhere—led many of those who survived it toward a perception and belief that traditional answers and conventional sources of consolation, including religion, were no longer adequate as a means of explanation for the most profound questions that persistently arose. As in the aftermath of World War I three decades earlier, it often seemed that no proposed explanation—including that it was “God’s will” or that “the ways of God are beyond our understanding and past our finding out”—seemed to make sense; all seemed mere human projections onto the existential void, which, of course, cares not at all what human beings try futilely to inscribe on it. Such efforts, therefore, may seem utterly disheartening or, in an odd way, comical because they are “absurd”—because they can and must come to literally nothing. In his essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” (1942), Algerian novelist Albert Camus argued that the Greek mythological figure of Sisyphus is a prototypical absurdist hero. Condemned endlessly to the uncompleteable task of rolling a large boulder up a mountain, he knows that his efforts will fail every time he tries, that the rock will roll back down the slope to its base. His dignity—and that of all of humanity—lies in his persistent struggle, his refusal to give up, and his unwillingness to admit the inevitable defeat and resign himself to despair. For Beckett’s characters, the task is even simpler, though arguably worse and certainly more uneventful: they have merely to wait, actually to do nothing for an undeterminable interim of time, to be endlessly passive rather than active. Sisyphus’s undertaking would surely be well beyond their poor powers (as “non-can-er[s]”), and they are certainly not heroic by any conventional definition of the term. Camus approaches the issues of the absurd with the earnestness and humorlessness of his then-friend

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Sartre; for Beckett, as for his “non-know-er[s],” such earnestness about a futile plight is surely comical as well. Yet, as the Citation of the Swedish Academy for the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature indicated, Beckett too “transmuted the destitution of modern man into his exaltation” (qtd. in Bair 606). In many ways, the most significant precedent for Beckett’s comic absurdism is to be found in the fiction of Franz Kafka. Like Beckett’s works, Kafka’s posit a world in which events occur arbitrarily, seemingly without understandable explanation; they remain impervious to all rational attempts to explain, manage, or resolve them, operating with a nightmare logic that has a plausibility all its own. Typically, the character’s plight is presented in the opening sentence or on the first page, without explanation: in The Metamorphosis Gregor Samsa awakens one morning to find himself transformed into an enormous insect; in The Trial, the character known only as K. is suddenly arrested and put on trial for a crime whose nature he can never discover. Similarly, the specific reason why Vladimir and Estragon must wait for the unknown Godot is never disclosed. The comedy arises from their continually frustrated efforts to cope with their situations, the persistence of habit and routine (Gregor still wants to go to work), and their more or less taciturn acceptance of a plight that is both horrific and absurd. Readers (and, regarding Waiting for Godot, theatergoers) who attempt to turn the work into an allegory of some kind or to find some comfortably clever all-encompassing explication for its seemingly apparent symbols will find themselves equally frustrated: although both authors’ works are written in remarkably direct and comparatively simple style, they resist all attempts to impose on them some kind of “totalizing” explanation. In his novella The Death of Ivan Ilych (The Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Stories, trans. Aylmer Maude and J. D. Duff [New York: SignetNAL, 1960]), Leo Tolstoy quite inadvertently and quite eloquently summarizes the five key themes of literary modernism, five ideas that would preoccupy the century following his own. Confronting the inescapable fact of his own mortality and reevaluating the conventional middle-class values by which he has lived, Ivan Ilych suddenly encounters the idea of the absurd: He…restrained himself no longer but wept like a child. He wept on account of his helplessness, his terrible loneliness, the cruelty of man, the cruelty of God, and the absence of God. “Why hast Thou done all this? Why hast Thou brought me here? Why, why dost Thou torment me so terribly?”

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Having brought Ivan Ilych to the brink of the existential void and his personal nadir, however, Tolstoy does not allow him to remain there for long. With all the earnestness and sanctimony that a nineteenth-century moralist can muster, he guides his character unfailingly toward a deathbed epiphany and a religious affirmation that is, like Tolstoy’s own radically self-reinvented Christianity, unorthodox by any known traditional or institutional standards. Neither Beckett’s characters nor Kafka’s ever get—or seek—such cosmic benefaction. More importantly, unlike Ivan Ilych, they do not weep “because there [is] no answer and [can] be none”; they do not beseech the universe to explain why the events that happen to them have occurred—even when Pozzo goes blind and Lucky loses the ability to speak. Instead, they simply cope, within their limitations, as best they can; in other words, in a key phrase that resonates throughout Beckett’s works, they just “go on.” That “there [is] no answer and could be none” is the premise of their existence—and the premise of the absurd. OTHER PHILOSOPHICAL CONTEXTS Beyond the Christian/existential/absurdist debate that has dominated the discussion of Waiting for Godot, the worldviews of many other philosophers and theologians have also been found to provide useful insights into Waiting for Godot. While it is not feasible to summarize here the intricacies of their thought and its relation to Beckett’s play, what follows is a guide to the major issues and where detailed discussions of them may be found. Probably the best single volume of intellectual context for Beckett’s play is A. N. Wilson’s God’s Funeral (New York: Norton, 1999), which offers a history of the “Victorian crisis of faith,” as a result of which, by the end of the nineteenth century, almost all of Europe’s great writers, artists, and intellectuals had abandoned traditional Christianity in particular or religious belief in general. Although widely attributed to the impact of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species and the ensuing controversies over the nature of human and social existence, the collapse of traditional faith had far wider origins. Wilson’s lucid prose covers 14 such major philosophical milestones, many of which (particularly in the early chapters) anticipate the radical agnosticism and the desolation that finds its physical

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counterpart in the bleak landscape of Waiting for Godot. The first chapter, “God’s Funeral” (the title of a Thomas Hardy poem), provides an eloquent overview of the “crisis of faith” (1–16). Chapter 2, “Hume’s Time-Bomb” (17–38), focuses on the eighteenth-century empiricist David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), which offered proof that God could not exist in the form portrayed by centuries of traditional religious teachings. “The Religion of Humanity” (39–52) discusses early-nineteenth-century radicalism, including Jeremy Bentham’s doctrine of utilitarianism and the philosophy of John Stuart Mill, who seems “to have embraced a watery form of Deism; that is, the Universe probably was invented by God, but He made no efforts to speak to the human race and they could only infer His existence by viewing the pattern of Creation or contemplating their certainty of moral truth” (45–46); such are the forerunners of Lucky’s rant about God’s “aphasia” in a world where certainties (including moral ones) are very hard to find. Wilson discusses the writings of Georg Wilhelm Hegel in this third chapter, focusing on his belief that modern “systems of thought, of political government, of education and science…entirely supersede the wisdom and experience of previous ages,” to which, of course, traditional Christianity was consigned (47–48). The fifth chapter, “Not Angles but Engels” (79–112), introduces the economic and antireligious critiques of Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. The impact of Sigmund Freud is briefly assayed in the chapter entitled “In the Name of the Father” (230–253), which concludes that “like Marx, and like Darwin, he provided an imaginative framework in which Determinism could continue without Illusion” (252). Of particular interest to first-generation Beckett scholars was his grounding in the thought of René Descartes, especially regarding the problem of the relationship between the mind and the body. Although this preoccupation is much more evident in Beckett’s novels than in Waiting for Godot, the nature of the divided self is present in the play in that Vladimir is the more intellectual of the pair whereas Estragon is the more physical and bodily. However, the concept of the dual identity—a divided or bifurcated self—has its origins much further back in history: at least as early as the writings of the apostle Paul in the Christian tradition and the philosophy of Plato in ancient Greece. We have, Paul famously contends, two bodies: “There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body” (I Corinthians 15:44). However, the latter term in this binary opposition is consistently privileged over the former. The natural (physical) body “is sown [buried] in corruption; it [the spiritual body] is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body” (I Corinthi-

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ans 15:42–44). If, as Descartes famously claimed, the foundation of all knowledge of the world is the realization of “Cogito, ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am”), a number of distinctly Beckettian questions emerge: How is the I that is aware of itself thinking related to the body (the “mortal coil” as Hamlet terms it) that is its container and seems to operate in many ways independent of—and sometimes in lethal antagonism to—the ostensibly controlling mind and will? What, indeed, is the I that calls itself “I” and is aware of itself thinking? The self that expresses such selfawareness necessarily uses a language that does not originate within itself but must be learned from others. If we are confined within our own minds (solipsism) and imprisoned within our own bodies, how can we “know” with certainty other human beings or the “reality” of the world around us? (Short answer: we can’t). If that is the case, how can we then even begin to presume to know metaphysical realities, much less presume “to justify the ways of God to man,” as John Milton famously claimed that Paradise Lost would do? (Short answer: we really can’t). In exactly the term that Beckett applied to his own characters, we are thus all “non-know-ers and non-can-ers.” Like Vladimir and Estragon, we cannot know with certainty those things that most matter to us: the truth about ourselves, about each other, about why we are here, about what we are to do while we are here, about God, about being “saved” from our situation, about Godot. If there is any transcendent and metaphysical reality (as many earlier philosophers contend), it has never manifested itself to Beckett’s characters. The “here” that we are is the Cartesian world of “objective fact”— simplified and reduced, via Beckettian minimalism, to a tree, a road, a mound, and the play’s various props (the boots, the carrot, and so on). Such a world is, necessarily, indifferent to (since unaware of) our presence. So is the cosmic void that surrounds it all, the all-important silence that is the hallmark of any Beckett play. Onto such a world, and into such a silence, we project “subjective values” and meaning—inscribing and imposing, in effect, values that originate within ourselves. To this too the world, the surrounding void, and the silence are utterly indifferent. When volunteering information about Godot and about himself (rather than confirming the positively or negatively phrased interrogations that Vladimir poses to him), the boy reports “objective facts” (the loft, the sheep, the goats, Godot’s beard); about “subjective states” (his own happiness), he can say nothing other than that he does not know. Arnold Geulincx (1624–1669), a Flemish disciple of Descartes, extended the emphasis on human ignorance even further—and famously described the relationship between the body and the mind as that of two clocks, running independently and without interaction, though synchronized by God

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and thus in harmony. Indeed, he denied any real interaction between finite things, since God is the sole and ultimate active power. For discussion of the importance of Geulincx’s philosophy in Beckett’s writings, see Rupert Wood’s “Murphy, Beckett, Geulincx, God,” Journal of Beckett Studies 2.2 (Spring 1993): 27–51 and Hugh Kenner’s Samuel Beckett: A Critical Study (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), 83–85. Beyond the problems of mind and body, self and world, the characters in Waiting for Godot are, obviously, trapped in time—exactly as Beckett described the characters in Marcel Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu in his 1931 monograph titled Proust (New York: Grove Press, 1957). Although critics are sharply divided over whether this study reveals more about Proust or about Beckett himself, its emphasis on time and the deadening effects of habit are directly relevant to the world of Waiting for Godot. Indeed, in the very first paragraph of the book, Beckett refers to “that double-headed monster of damnation and salvation—Time” (1), a phrase that not only suggests the play’s reference to the crucified thieves but may evoke the (for Beckett, seemingly endless) Saturday between the Crucifixion (Good Friday) and the Resurrection (Easter Sunday). As a time of agonizing not-knowing, of crucial divine absence from the world, of waiting for the “man-God” to come again (akin, perhaps, to waiting again for Godot to come), it can be extended as a metaphor for the play’s time as well. Surely Vladimir and Estragon, no less than Proust’s characters,…are victims of this predominating condition and circumstance—Time;…victims and prisoners. There is no escape from the hours and the days. Neither from tomorrow nor from yesterday. There is no escape from yesterday because yesterday has deformed us, or been deformed by us…. We are not merely more weary because of yesterday, we are other, no longer what we were before the calamity of yesterday…. Such as it was, it has been assimilated to the only world that has reality and significance, the world of our own latent consciousness…. We are disappointed at the nullity of what we are pleased to call attainment. (2–3)

In contrast to the events of the past, however, “the future event cannot be focussed [sic], its implications cannot be seized, until it is definitely situated and a date assigned to it” (6). Such is exactly the problem with the arrival of Godot. In order to while away the time in the indefinable interim, Vladimir and Estragon define their existence through memories and routine, otherwise identifiable as habit, of which Beckett writes that the laws of memory are subject to the more general laws of habit. Habit is a compromise effected between the individual and his environment,…the

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The disconcerting and grotesque canine image in the above passage is in fact a biblical allusion: “As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly” (Proverbs 26:11). So Vladimir and Estragon return to wait yet again for yet another day. Another philosopher whom Beckett openly acknowledges in his study on Proust is Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), who views the world as an “objectivation of the individual’s will” (8). His major work, The World as Will and Representation, argues that people do not have individual wills but are instead part of a vast single will that pervades the universe and is the source of human suffering. His view that the world is but an idea in one’s head (extreme solipsism) is particularly germane to Beckett’s play Endgame in particular and, in a different way, to the series of novels preceding Waiting for Godot. As Karl Jung wrote of him in Memories, Dreams, Reflections (New York: Vintage-Random, 1961), He was the first to speak of the suffering of the world, which visibly and glaringly surrounds us, and of confusion, passion, evil—all those things which the [other philosophers] hardly seemed to notice and tried to resolve into all-embracing harmony and comprehensibility. Here at last was a philosopher who had the courage to see that all was not for the best in the fundaments of the universe. (69)

In a passage from the supplement to the first book of The World as Will and Representation (trans. E. F. T. Payne, Vol. 2 [n.p.: The Falcon’s Wing Press, 1958]), however, Schopenhauer might as well have been describing Waiting for Godot: No one has the remotest idea why the whole tragi-comedy [of the world, of life] exists, for it has no spectators, and the actors themselves undergo endless worry and trouble with little and merely negative enjoyment…. Life by no means presents itself as a gift to be enjoyed, but as a task, a drudgery, to be worked through…. We see, on a large scale as well as on a small, universal need, restless exertion, constant pressure, endless strife, forced activity, with extreme exertion of all bodily and mental powers…. But what is the ultimate aim of it all? To sustain ephemeral and harassed individuals through a short span of time, in the most fortunate case with endurable want and comparative painlessness, yet boredom is once on the lookout for

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this…. The will-to-live, taken objectively, appears to us from this point of view as a fool, or taken subjectively, as a delusion. (357)

This will-to-live, according to Harold Bloom, is the quintessential Beckettian urge “to keep going on when you can’t go on” (Genius: A Mosaic of 100 Exemplary Creative Minds [New York: Warner Books, 2002], 220). The relationship between Pozzo and Lucky also has a deep philosophical background, beginning with the master/slave dichotomy postulated by Georg Hegel (1770–1831) in his Phenomenology of Spirit (1807; trans. A. V. Miller [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977]). It begins in a battle for recognition and prestige between two self-consciousnesses. However, as the reversal of Pozzo’s fortune in the second act reveals, the dialectic between them is unstable: the master is tied to and dependent on the slave to sustain his or her position of supremacy, and the slave gains a kind of freedom through recognition in his or her work. Each thinks about the other in terms of the self. For Friedrich Nietzsche, however, the master/slave relationship is a pure exercise of power, devoid of any and all externally imposed moralities. In terms of the theories of Karl Marx, however, it symbolizes economic exploitation: Lucky, who is to be sold at the fair, is a human being reduced to a commodity; he can easily be seen as an oppressed worker, a part of the exploited and dehumanized proletariat: his futile task is lugging a suitcase filled with sand, and when his usefulness has diminished he is deemed as expendable as any replaceable part of a machine. Pozzo—a member of the landowning class, or so he claims—is clearly an effete and pretentious member of the bourgeoisie, whose well-being and creature comforts (the pipe, the stool, the chicken) depend on the unrelenting subjugation of his burden-bearing servant. Selected writings of Nietzsche are available in two standard editions: The Portable Nietzsche (ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann [new edition; New York: Viking-Penguin, 1977]) and Basic Writings of Nietzsche (ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann [New York: The Modern Library, 1968]). The Will to Power (ed. Walter Kaufmann, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale [New York: Vintage-Random, 1968]) is separately available; see especially “The Critique of Morality,” 146–219. For a detailed discussion of the application of Marxist theory to literary texts, see Raymond Williams’s Marxism and Literature (new edition; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985); numerous editions of selections from the writings of Marx and Engels are available, of which Marx and Engels: Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy (ed. Lewis S. Feuer [Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor-Doubleday, 1959]) offers a particularly wide-ranging selection. Robert Stern’s Routledge Philosophy

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Guidebook to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (London: Routledge, 2001) is a clear and useful guide to one of the most difficult texts in the history of philosophy. A close runner-up for that distinction would be Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time (trans. Joan Stanbaugh [Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996]), in which the philosopher seeks the understanding of authentic human Being (Dasein) by uncovering the existential structures of human existence, of so-called Being-in-the-world—a concern with obvious ties to Waiting for Godot. For those pursuing this connection in Beckett’s work, Magda King’s A Guide to Heidegger’s Being and Time (ed. John Llewelyn [Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001]) and Hubert Dreyfus’s Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time, Division I (Boston: MIT Press, 1990) will prove to be of invaluable assistance. For a thorough discussion of its relationship to Beckett’s writings, see Lance St. John Butler’s second chapter of Samuel Beckett and the Meaning of Being: A Study in Ontological Parable (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984), 7–73. This book (which bears the dedication “For Godot”) also contains an excellent discussion of “Sartre’s Being and Nothingness and Beckett,” 74–115. Freudian thought and other psychoanalytic theories have also been brought to bear on Beckett’s writings (and his personality), though relatively little such attention has been focused on Waiting for Godot. G. C. Barnard’s Samuel Beckett: A New Approach: A Study of the Novels and Plays (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1970) assesses his writing in terms of schizophrenia. Phil Baker’s Beckett and the Myth of Psychoanalysis (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997) deals more extensively with the issues but contains only four pages related to Waiting for Godot. Lois Gordon’s Reading Godot (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002) contains the most extensive application of Freudian theory to the play, emphasizing Freud’s concept of the “conglomerative effect”; it is described more extensively in the bibliographical essay in this book. The sheer density and diversity of the philosophical approaches to the play often seem particularly daunting to newcomers to Beckett studies. Can a single relatively plotless play in such (mostly) simple language really contain or be contextualized by so overwhelmingly many (often contradictory) philosophical doctrines? Worse yet, does a reader or theatergoer need to know all this to understand what’s going on? The answer to the first question is yes (such evocativeness is an effect of Beckett’s particular genius and his minimalist aesthetic), but the answer to the second question is definitely no. Any such intellectual context can provide a useful framework for assessing the plight of Beckett’s charac-

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ters, thereby enriching an interpretation of it, but the play has been both enjoyed and understood by countless thousands of viewers and readers who know none of it. Most assuredly, Beckett would not have wanted it any other way. That fact is one of very few certainties about Waiting for Godot.

Chapter 5

DRAMATIC ART

Minimalism, minimally defined, is the art of subtraction. Like many other major innovative aesthetic movements in the twentieth century, it challenges us, its audience, to “reeducate our eyes” (Guy Davenport’s phrase from “The Geography of the Imagination,” The Geography of the Imagination: Forty Essays [San Francisco: North Point Press, 1981], 5), and in so doing to rethink what we thought we knew about how a work “means.” Although minimalism originates early in the twentieth century and is exemplified in such diverse works as the very brief imagist poems of Ezra Pound and H. D., the series of “Bird in Flight” sculptures of Constantine Brancusi, and the elongated and emaciated human figures in the drawings and sculptures of Alberto Giacometti, its best-known and most debated manifestation is Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, which, in effect, subtracted all semblance of conventional dramatic plotting by putting onstage a play in which, its detractors claim, nothing happens—twice: once in the first act and again in the second. In the same way that the chemical process known as edulcoration eliminates impurities from a physical substance, minimalism seeks to remove any and all inessentials from an artistic form: a poem, a painting, a sculpture, a short story, a play. The goal, therefore, is to convey as much as possible using as little as possible of the matrix of one’s art. The more successful one is at it, the less one has to use to communicate. Less is, in effect, more. A drawing of a crowing rooster, for example, could be rendered with only three lines: an elongated curve for the body, an angled line for the beak, and an inverted V for the legs and feet. While it would not, admittedly, look like a John James Audubon painting, such a realistic representa-

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tion was never the goal—and, furthermore, such realism is emphatically not the only valid means of representing the subject. The drawing would still be recognizable—would, in other words, still convey “meaning” (and cross-culturally so)—but it does so by having reduced the fowl to a certain essence: a contour of body and squawk. The particularities that Audubon so painstakingly detailed—colors, feathers, wattles, and so on—turn out to be inessential or at least expendable; that is, they can be excised without losing the core, the idea, the subject, the image. Such a reduction can be viewed as a distillation of the artistic form, not an abandonment of it: a haiku is no less rigorous in form than a sonnet, and each is capable of an exquisite beauty all its own. Although either may seem “slight” when compared to an epic, neither is rendered less poetic or less valid as a means of artistic expression thereby. Nevertheless, minimalist works are often regarded with extraordinary chariness by the sometimes-bewildered general public, a narrow-eyed suspicion that “it’s all a scam” somehow, an implicit and unexamined assumption that a work of art yields more that is “of value” if purchased by the pound or the square yard. Occasional outcries from an uncomprehending or outraged public—long-familiar Philistine complaints that almost invariably begin with the words “any [or ‘my’] five-year-old can”—are thus basically irrelevant to the minimalist enterprise, a serious (albeit often humorous and sometimes even whimsical) aesthetic exploration whose rules and principles are no less rigorous than any others. Among the most accessible sources for Beckett’s imagery are the film comedies featuring Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Chaplin’s worldfamous character The Little Tramp (known in French as “Charlot”) was soon established as a comical modern Everyman—bowler-hatted and shabby-genteel, beleaguered by circumstances, sometimes (especially in the first third of Modern Times [1936]) swallowed up in social systems that he cannot control or understand, but always resilient and, typically, in the films’ final sequences, traveling on down a road at dusk. In The Tramp (1915), he appears from along the dusty road and stops to eat lunch beside a tree, though his food is soon stolen by thieves—a situation with obvious parallels to Waiting for Godot, with its road, its tree, and its unknown “they” who administer beatings for no known reason. The characteristic blend of pathos and comedy in Chaplin’s films has certain affinities with Beckett’s use of the term “tragicomedy” for Waiting for Godot, but there is a sentimentality in Chaplin’s films that is nowhere present in Beckett’s writings. In that regard, they are much closer to the films of Buster Keaton, known as “the Great Stone Face,” whose comic characters remain stoically impassive even in the face of disaster; among his masterpieces are The Navigator (1924) and The General (1926). As

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Walter Kerr has observed in The Silent Clowns (New York: Knopf, 1975), “the elements with which [Keaton’s character] is at odds and in which he is so much at home…[include] the natural geometry of a universe God made and washed His hands of” (127), not unlike that in Beckett’s own works. The most uncannily Beckettian image of that “natural geometry” occurs in Go West (1925): on a vast, empty plain that stretches only to distant mountains on the horizon, Keaton stands alone beside a scraggly, shrublike tree (see Kerr 214–215). His character, known only as Friendless, is, as Pauline Kael describes him, “a lonely, buffeted, uncomplaining drifter without home, country, or dime” who “finds his first and only comfort and fellowship in a sad-eyed cow”; nevertheless, he remains so “unself-consciously stoic in adversity that the pathos is never offensive,” in a film that, like Waiting for Godot, is “sad and funny at the same time— which wasn’t true of Chaplin’s pathos” (5001 Nights at the Movies [New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1982], 219). Keaton declined the role of Lucky in the original American production of Godot but did appear as the only character in Beckett’s almost-soundless 24-minute Film (1964). That solitude, so characteristic of both Keaton’s and Chaplin’s screen personae, is their major difference from the characters in Waiting for Godot. The comfort and fellowship that sustain Vladimir and Estragon in their plight also has its antecedents in early film comedies, particularly those featuring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, the sometimes querulous, ultimately inseparable, always bowler-hatted friends whose (mis)adventures were featured in silent and sound films from 1926 into the 1940s. As with Vladimir and Estragon, the origins of their friendship are never explained; whatever strains their relationship encounters, whatever pratfalls and mayhem ensue, they assume that “united we stand; divided we fall” (Towed in the Hole, 1932). Like Beckett’s duo, who allude to their (otherwise unexplained) experience as grape pickers (40a) and sojourns in the Macon country (39b–40a) and in Paris (7b), Laurel and Hardy have held a number of menial jobs: they are fishmongers in Towed in the Hole, sawmill workers in Busy Bodies (1933), and piano movers in The Music Box (1932). They have also lived in England (A Chump at Oxford, 1939), in the American west (Way Out West, 1937), and in the North African desert as members of the French Foreign Legion (Sons of the Desert, 1934). Yet whatever the setting, they inhabit a comic universe in which even the simplest props cannot be mastered and the simplest tasks cannot be accomplished without confusion and mayhem. In his original review of Waiting for Godot (the Observer, 7 August 1955), Kenneth Tynan suggested that Laurel and Hardy would be “the ideal casting” (the Observer, 11; rpt. in Samuel Beckett: the Critical Heritage, ed. Lawrence Graver and Raymond Federman,

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London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979) for Pozzo and Lucky, but he was presumably referring to their physical types (fat and thin, respectively, the eiron and bomolochos types dating back to the ancient dramas of Aristophanes) and their usual pattern of dominance and submission. Nevertheless, it is difficult to imagine Stan Laurel delivering Lucky’s lengthy monologue, and the rhythms in the dialogue of Vladimir and Estragon are unmistakably Laurel and Hardy’s own. With its origins in the comic cross talk of the English music-hall tradition (Laurel’s background) and American vaudeville and minstrelsy (Hardy’s), the typical pattern of their dialogue is uncannily replicated in Waiting for Godot. Their dialogue is spare, punctuated with long pauses for Hardy’s famous “slow-burn”; he looks straight into the camera as his exasperation builds into anger that, whether expressed in words or in deeds, is often as futile as Vladimir’s outbursts against Estragon. Even the simplest declarative sentences can be easily misunderstood and must be repeated or rephrased; even the most basic facts and assumptions can readily be challenged or denied. Canters of disagreement, even if irresolvable, often end with the comforts of cliché—or simple silence. Hardy, like Vladimir, is the more assertive, authoritative, cerebral, and sententious of the pair; Estragon, like Laurel, tends to be the more literal minded, befuddled, forgetful, and unable to interpret events. Finally, as Walter Kerr has noted, “Hardy rarely questions instructions but hops to with a will, [whereas] Laurel questions them to no avail” (327). Neither procedure brings them much success—a fact that is equally true of the characters in Waiting for Godot. In a commentary on the Irish playwright Sean O’Casey (reprinted in Disjecta: Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragment, ed. Ruby Cohn [New York: Grove Press, 1984], 82–83), Beckett expressed his admiration for the style of comedy found not only in his compatriot’s plays but especially in the film comedies and music-hall acts described above. Characterizing it as “knockabout,” Beckett invoked it in its “very serious and honourable sense—that…[the] principle of disintegration [is discerned] in even the most complacent solidities, and activates it to their explosion. This is the centre of his theatre, the triumph of the principle of knockabout in situation, in all its elements and on all its planes, from the furniture to the higher centres.” He might as well have been describing the comic style of Waiting for Godot. THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD The implications of that final dilemma—whether to obey instructions unhesitantly or to question their purpose—are both cosmic and comical,

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practical and profound; yet if both courses of action are ultimately “to no avail,” the predicament itself—and the existence that it defines—is futile, meaningless, and quite literally absurd. That worldview is central to the theater of the absurd, of which Waiting for Godot is the best-known example. As defined by Martin Esslin in his book The Theatre of the Absurd (New York: Vintage-Random, 1961), The hallmark of this attitude is the sense that the certitudes and unshakable basic assumptions of former ages have been swept away, that they have been tested and found wanting, that they have been discredited as cheap and somewhat childish illusions. The decline of religious faith was masked until the end of the Second World War by the substitute religions of faith in progress, nationalism, and various totalitarian fallacies…. The Theatre of the Absurd strives to express its sense of the senselessness of the human condition and the inadequacy of the rational approach by the open abandonment of rational devices and discursive thought. (xviii–xx)

Accordingly, such works are emphatically not meaningless, as their detractors often allege; nor are they dramatic counterparts of the inkblots in a Rorschach Test, open to any interpretation conceivable. Instead, their meaning has to do with an inability to find meaning, purpose, or certainty in life or in the universe itself. Esslin also notes that “the Theatre of the Absurd…tends toward a radical devaluation of language, toward a poetry that is to emerge from the concrete and objectified images of the stage itself” (xxi). This use of language, found in the works of Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Jean Genet, and Arthur Adamov, crucially and fundamentally separates them from more traditionally rhetorical and philosophical playwrights as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, whose existential novels, plays, and philosophical writings also deal with themes of the absurdity of existence. In his chapter “The Tradition of the Absurd,” Esslin identifies four theatrical contexts within which the theater of the absurd can be placed—and the first three of these have direct relevance to the dramatic art of Waiting for Godot. These four traditions are (1) so-called pure theater, represented by the work of mimes, revue artists, circus acts, acrobats, or bullfighters; (2) clowns and fools; (3) “verbal nonsense”; (4) dream or fantasy literature, often with allegorical content. All four of these types, each of which is centuries old, are fundamentally unlike the now-ordinary “realistic” or representational theater, the dominant mode since the mid-nineteenth century; there is no assumption in these forms that the audience is looking through a “fourth wall” into the (realistically depicted) set, often supposedly the home of the characters. Yet the four types fundamentally affect

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the acting style (and, indeed, the acting skills) that a performance of Waiting for Godot requires. “Pure theater” is primarily to be discerned in the play’s vestiges of the music hall and vaudevillian tradition, filtered through the silent movies discussed above. However, it is also present in the way that the actors “play” the Beckettian silences—a talent akin to but not the same as mime, since it does not require the wordless physical imitation of an action (being trapped in a glass box, or whatever) but does require an expressive stillness, a mastery of expression and gesture, and a wordless eloquence that can be held for as long a period as the individual director requires. The presence of clownishness in Waiting for Godot was first noted by playwright Jean Anouilh, who mentioned the Fraternelli Clowns in his review of the original production of the play. English novelist and essayist J. B. Priestley was also impressed by the Fraternelli Clowns in Paris during the 1930s, and he included both a description of their act and a photograph of the three of them in costume in his book Particular Pleasures: Being a Personal Record of Some Varied Arts and Many Different Artists (New York: Stein and Day, 1975). Although he does not specifically link them to Waiting for Godot, his description of their act makes clear the importance of their nameless characters as antecedents for Pozzo and Lucky in particular: Unlike ordinary clowns they represented a social structure, as if visiting us from some Clowndom that had its own division into classes…. Number One was quite beautifully dressed; handsome, confident, full of authority and privilege; he was the only aristocratic clown I have ever seen. Number Two, somberly if clownishly dressed, obviously came from the professional middle class of the distant realm. He took orders from Number One but soon passed them on, if any labour was involved, to Number Three. This last, an Auguste always nearly coming to pieces, had been imported from the most depressed and forlorn class in Clowndom, a dazed and hopeless proletarian if ever I saw one. And whatever work had to be done, muttering and stumbling, he did it. (164–166)

Remarkably, the “one of their acts” that Priestley describes in detail is an uncannily accurate description of the arrival of Pozzo (Clown One) and Lucky (Clown Three) in the first act of Beckett’s play, with Vladimir and Estragon as onlookers whose participation in the spectacle has been greatly diminished: Number One arrived…,looking around him as if wondering where to settle. Number Two, anxious and conscientious,…came in a moment later, to…

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bring on Number Three, not only about to fall to pieces but also weighed down with a monstrous amount of baggage. Number One, without deigning to speak, pointed to another point of the ring and delicately began to move there, ignoring the lower classes behind him…. Number Three,…by this time, poor fellow, had divested himself of all that baggage and was trying to enjoy a rest while still falling to pieces. Muttering and groaning he took up his load again, to stumble after his betters…. No sooner had Number Three arrived with his burden of baggage than Number One, nothing if not arbitrary and capricious, had changed his mind and decided on another part of the ring….It was very funny and yet rather sad at the same time. (165–166)

Exemplified in Pablo Picasso’s paintings of melancholy harlequins and other circus figures, this European style of clowning is quite apart from the happier, more raucous, pie-in-the-face and seltzer-down-the-pants slapstick associated with Bozo the Clown, Ronald McDonald, and American circuses. The European tradition, lovingly documented in Federico Fellini’s film The Clowns (1970), is well attuned to the tragicomic nature of Beckett’s play. Some of the play’s physical pratfalls, particularly the collapse of Lucky and Pozzo in the second act and the efforts of Vladimir and Estragon to raise them, are indebted to the clown tradition—as are their costumes as tramps (a detail nowhere specified in the text); however, it is most often associated with Charlie Chaplin’s character The Little Tramp. The best-known American funny-sad tramp-clown was Emmet Kelly, whose silent character Willie the Tramp was later echoed in television comedian Red Skelton’s character of Freddie the Freeloader—although both used facial makeup not associated with Beckett’s characters and relied on a sentimentality that is never found in Beckett’s plays. The primary use of verbal nonsense in Waiting for Godot occurs in Lucky’s tirade, although the particular form of its nonsense is uniquely Beckett’s own. In contrast to the newly made up words of Lewis Carroll’s poem “Jabberwocky” (“slithy toves,” “mome raths”), for example, Lucky’s speech consists primarily of fragments of academic jargon, philosophical postulates (and posturing), comic digressions, pointless lists (sports), and arcane theological terms (apathia, athambia, aphasia). Lacking the narrative linearity of Carroll’s verse (which gives it a discernible “plot” despite its many undefinable words), Lucky’s speech is nonsensical in a different way. Bordering on incoherence and typically delivered onstage with a rapidity that further impedes logical analysis, it becomes in effect a form of “metadiscourse”—discourse about discourse and its breakdown, “thinking” about thinking itself, rhetoric about rhetoric and its failure, particularly implicating modern theology for its ephemerality and/or its irrelevance to actual suffering and actual lives.

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An additional feature of Beckett’s verbal nonsense in Lucky’s speech is the repetition of a single syllable, sometimes within a word (cacaca, popopo) and sometimes in lieu of words themselves (quaquaqua). The names Fartov and Belcher, also found in Lucky’s speech, are, if not precisely scatological, at least examples of what might be termed the humor of dyspepsia. Such references recur throughout Beckett’s works, including the title of his collection of short prose pieces Fizzles (a term defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as a “small fart”). Although such scatological humor is not a defining characteristic of the term “theater of the absurd,” it can be traced back to the origins of the modern absurdist theater itself, since it was first given then-shocking prominence in Alfred Jarry’s play Ubu Roi (1896), arguably the earliest undisputed example of the theater of the absurd. Jarry’s play, even more than Waiting for Godot, was a calculated affront to the conventional audience of its day, particularly any middle-class theatergoers who had come to the theater in search of a good night out. Like many works of the theater of the absurd and, indeed, like virtually any work of the self-styled avant-garde then or now, Ubu Roi assailed bourgeois smallmindedness and complacency, philistinism in all its forms, and conventional codes of decorum, propriety, and respectability. Its marionette-like central characters are quintessential vulgarians—coarse, crude, grotesque, foul-mouthed, bawdy, clownlike, literally outrageous in every sense of the word, and (of course) funny. Like Beckett’s work over fifty years later, Jarry’s play outraged traditionalists and started a tumult of controversy, replete with the usual charges of fraud, impiety, and decadence as well as declamations about the end of civilization as we know it. Both plays openly defied (and eventually redefined) audience expectations and brought their creators renown and notoriety. Whereas Jarry was eventually consumed by the character he created (adopting Pere Ubu’s gestures, odd intonations, and use of the royal “we”), Beckett refused all efforts at exegesis of his work, declined public comment, and remained above the public fray. In Samuel Beckett’s Theatre: Life Journeys (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001) Katharine Worth contends that, despite the widespread use of the “absurd” in critical discussions of Beckett’s works, the term itself doesn’t quite fit. The arch Absurdist, [Eugene] Ionesco, explained the Absurd as a theatre which shows man “cut off from his religious, metaphysical and transcendental roots,” so that his actions become “senseless and absurd, useless.” Fear of that fate may haunt Beckett’s characters but it is not the medium in which they exist. On the contrary they pursue enlightenment in the teeth of absurdity—and experience it too, if only partially and intermittently. (10–11)

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Certainly, to anyone who has read or seen plays by both Beckett and Ionesco, fundamental differences are readily apparent. Such plays as The Bald Soprano (1953) and The Chairs (1954) satirize more mundane and domestic concerns, often with specifically middle-class and specifically French characters (who, in The Bald Soprano, speak the banalities of language primer textbooks); furthermore, Ionesco’s plays’ single, relatively simple comic premises can often be readily summarized in a sentence, as Beckett’s cannot. Even Ionesco’s best-known play, Rhinoceros (1959), seems more identifiably a product of its particular time and place than Beckett’s plays do, and his works have been produced far less frequently worldwide. Whether their author is rightly deemed the “arch Absurdist” or not, Ionesco’s plays have generated neither the abundance of critical interest nor the diversity of interpretation that Beckett’s works have been accorded, and they seem far less likely to endure as the foremost exemplars of the absurd. IRISH “TRAMP COMEDY” A little-known tradition that is particularly relevant to Waiting for Godot is that of the specifically Irish “tramp comedy.” Its foremost example, John Millington Synge’s The Well of the Saints (1905), is a play for which Beckett has specifically acknowledged his admiration (comment in the Shaw Centenary programme, Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, 1956; qtd. in Katharine Worth, The Irish Drama of Europe from Yeats to Beckett [Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1978], 242). Its central characters, Martin and Mary Doul, are blind beggars who, encouraged by the sighted villagers among whom they live, have fallen in love with the poetic and beautiful images that they have constructed of each other and in which they maintain a sustaining belief. Its first act takes place along a country road with big stones alongside it, with the “ruined doorway of [a] church” at the left (The Complete Plays of John M. Synge [New York: VintageRandom, 1935], 121); the Douls enter and sit on the stones, passing idle time together, wishing for even momentary sight, and hearing of “wonders” at a nearby fair—including one said to be forthcoming “here at the crossing of the roads” (125). A saint, passing through the town on the way to a holy shrine, applies holy water to the Douls’ eyes, temporarily giving them sight—fulfilling their longing but destroying the romantic illusions that each had lovingly constructed of the other. A second application of the holy water, when the saint returns, will make the change permanent—but the Douls must decide for themselves whether to accept the miracle and continue to live, illusionless, in the sighted world or whether to repudiate

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the supposedly benevolent supernatural intervention and return to being literally blind. Whether they can recapture their figurative blindness—that is, whether they can “unsee” what they have seen of each other and reconstruct their lost illusions—is a separate moral and epistemological issue entirely. A number of tropes from The Well of the Saints can readily be found in Waiting for Godot: the road, the paired tramps, the blindness, the anticipated arrival of a supernatural agent who transforms lives (the saint, a structural counterpart of Godot), and so on. However, the plays’ epistemological, existential, and theological implications provide more significant parallels. The Douls have defined each other, their happiness, and their life purposes through language; they do not and can not know the world directly. Their existences are perforce entirely solipsistic: neither knows the other except through illusion and artificial constructs. These are shattered when the itinerant miracle worker arrives—the supposedly benevolent agent of a favor- and sight-bestowing God, whose blessing (which grants the Douls what they have longed for) may turn out instead to be a curse. With ample biblical precedent for the transformation (accounts of the lame who suddenly walk, the blind who suddenly see, and the lepers who are instantaneously cured as a consequence of their fortuitous placement and luckily timed chance encounters with the Divine), The Well of the Saints is a uniquely modernist rendition of the traditionally didactic medieval miracle play. That it calls into question whether a miracle would best be rejected by its recipients radically sets it apart from its counterparts in earlier centuries, whose pious authors would almost certainly have found that issue literally unthinkable. Like Waiting for Godot, it forces a reconsideration of familiar and reassuring biblical stories and allusions, the premises of which, when examined, may seem arbitrary and absurd. Blindness goes from the Douls no less arbitrarily than it comes for Pozzo “one day.” How, exactly, the lives of Vladimir and Estragon would be transformed if Godot ever does arrive and does “save” them borders on the unimaginable, for themselves no less than for their audience. Being deprived of their defining purpose in life might prove to be no less an affliction than bestowing sight on the Douls. In both cases, the tragicomic experience of these Irish tramps transcends their particular time and place. TRAGICOMEDY Long considered a curious hybrid of genres, tragicomedy has its origins in the renaissance; the term was then used to refer to plays whose plots had the usual components of tragedy but ended happily, often as a result of surprising (and ludicrously improbable) circumstances. Among

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its most famous practitioners were the playwrights Francis Beaumont (1584–1616) and John Fletcher (1579–1623), who collaborated on such works as Philaster, or Love Lies a-Bleeding (1609). More recently, however, the term “tragicomedy” has been applied rather indiscriminately to almost any form of drama that does not conform to the conventions of either tragedy or comedy. Often it signifies little more than that a play contains both humorous motifs and serious themes; the category can be stretched to include works by authors as disparate as Tennessee Williams, Bertolt Brecht, Arthur Miller, Eugene O’Neill, Anton Chekhov, and J. M. Synge. When Beckett chose to label Waiting for Godot a tragicomedy (on the play’s title page), however, he provided the theater a wholly new conception of the term, emphasizing the indeterminacy and unresolvability that characterize not only the play’s content but also its form. Not only does it not end with artifice-laden contrivance, it lacks any sense of closure at all. Godot has not come; the status quo ante is resumed as the tramps resolve to wait another day; there is a breach between their words and their inaction, between going and not going. Each audience member and each reader must decide individually whether this ending is optimistic or pessimistic, comic or tragic—and whether its characters are admirable in their persistence or ridiculous in their self-delusions. The genre of the play itself is, therefore, uniquely a matter for viewers and readers to decide for themselves; text and performance support either view but ratify neither. Traditional forms have thus been both deconstructed and reconstructed, redefined in a literally provocative and radically innovative way.

Chapter 6

PERFORMANCE

The world’s first theatrical performance of En attendant Godot took place on January 5, 1953, in the 230-seat Théâtre de Babylone in Paris, France; an abridgment had been performed in the studio of the Club d’Essai de la Radio on February 17, 1952, and had been broadcast on the radio. The stage version was directed by Roger Blin, who played Pozzo; he cast Lucien Raimbourg (a music-hall actor and cabaret singer, diminutive in size) as Vladimir, opposite the portlier Pierre Latour as Estragon. Lucky was played by Jean Martin, who, in consultation with his friend Dr. Marthe Gautier, incorporated into his performance the characteristic tremors of Parkinson’s disease and dripped saliva from his mouth—an image of human misery that shocked many initial theatergoers. The boy was played by Serge Lecointe. Reactions to the play were decidedly mixed, though most reviews were good; among its early admirers were the playwright Jean Anouilh and the novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet. It soon became a succès de scandale, however, as conventional theatergoers made their outrage known; at least once, its detractors came to blows with its admirers during an intermission (James Knowlson, Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett [New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996], 350). As the controversy spread, it became a play that everyone had to see, though tickets to the tiny theater were necessarily quite scarce. It set new box office records for its theater and soon established a certain notoriety for both the play and the playwright. In September of the same year, it was reprised with a different cast.

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The German premiere of Waiting for Godot took place at the Schlosspark-theater in Berlin on September 8, 1953, directed by Karl Heinz Stroux. The cast consisted of Hans Hessling as Estragon, Alfred Schieske as Vladimir, Walter Franck as Pozzo, Friedrich Maurer as Lucky, and Roland Kaiser as the boy. While Waiting for Godot baffled and provoked conventional theatergoers, it resonated with a very different audience, as Beckett learned in October 1954 when he received a letter from an anonymous prisoner in Lüttringhausen prison near Wuppertal, Germany, who had read the play in French, translated it into German, cast it with fellow inmates, and performed in it at the prison. It had been a triumphant success there and was performed 15 times. It was the first of a number of performances by and for prisoners worldwide, who understood from their own experience (even if outraged Parisians of the middle class did not) what it is like to wait seemingly endlessly for something to happen, for meaning and purpose to be discovered in their lives. In Frankfurt in August 1956 the prisoners presented eight public performances of what they titled Man wartet auf Godot; their production company was known as the Spielschar der Landstrasse Wuppertal (The Players’ Troupe of the Open Road in Wuppertal). Although plans were discussed in 1954 for a production of Beckett’s English translation of Waiting for Godot to be staged in the West End (theater district) of London, directed by Peter Glenville and perhaps starring Alec Guinness and Sir Ralph Richardson, delays were encountered due to the stars’ busy schedules. The play also ran afoul of the Lord Chamberlain’s office, the official censor and licensee for all plays for public performance in England; among the demands was the deletion of 12 passages from the play, including the first 15 lines of Lucky’s tirade and references to crucifixion. Because the contract for British rights also included American rights for six months after the English production, the American premiere was delayed as well, although a version starring Buster Keaton as Vladimir and Marlon Brando as Estragon was among those proposed. An Irish premiere at the Pike Theatre Club in Dublin, directed by Alan Simpson, was also delayed until after the London opening. Productions in Germany, Holland, Italy, and Spain all preceded the British and American premieres. Eventually, the Lord Chamberlain’s objections were circumvented by production in a private theater club, over which his office had no jurisdiction. The London premiere of Waiting for Godot took place at the 337seat Arts Theatre Club on August 3, 1955, directed by Peter Hall. The set was much more complicated than Beckett specified, with Vladimir and Estragon often sitting on an oil drum; a fragment of Bartók music was

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heard as the lights went down. Vladimir was played by Paul Daneman and Estragon by Peter Woodthorpe, a 23-year-old second-year student at Magdalene College, Cambridge; it was his first professional performance. Peter Bull played Pozzo, and Timothy Bateson was Lucky; Michael Walker played the boy. The silences and pauses that would later become Beckett’s trademark were emphasized in Hall’s production, and Vladimir and Estragon came to seem less like circus clowns and more like a sometimes affectionate, sometimes bickering long-married couple. Peter Bull described the audience’s reaction on opening night: Waves of hostility came whirling over the footlights, and the mass exodus, which was to form such a feature of the run of the piece, started quite soon after the curtain had risen. The audible groans were also fairly disconcerting…. The curtain fell to mild applause…. The notices the next day were almost uniformly unfavorable, confused, and unprovocative. (“An Actor’s Recollections: Peter Bull as Pozzo,” in Casebook on Waiting for Godot, ed. Ruby Cohn [New York: Grove Press, 1967], 41–42)

Approximately half of the first-night audience left at intermission (Knowlson, Damned to Fame 374); obscurity, pretentiousness, and boredom were among the criticisms of the play in initial reviews. On the following Sunday, however, laudatory reviews by Harold Hobson in the Sunday Times and Kenneth Tynan in the Observer made the play an overnight sensation. On September 5, 1955, it was transferred (with the Lord Chamberlain’s cuts) to the Criterion Theatre in the West End, which seats 592. Daneman left the cast due to contractual obligations to another play (the Punch Revue); he was replaced first by Hugh Burden and then by several others. A tour followed the London production. During February and March 1956, debate raged in the Times Literary Supplement over whether the play was a modern-day Christian morality play, an existential play, or neither; finally, reviewing the correspondence in an article entitled “Puzzling over Godot,” the Times Literary Supplement concluded that the play’s meaning remained an open question. Beckett made no public comment. Due to the denial of permission by censors of the Franco government, the Spanish premiere of Waiting for Godot took place clandestinely on May 28, 1955, produced by the group Pequeño Teatro de Madrid in the Assembly Hall of the Faculty of Arts of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. It was directed by Trino Martínez Trives, who, when denied a license for the play under its English title because it was deemed “obscure and obscene and not worth the trouble,” sought and gained permission for

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it under the title Esperando a Godot (Antonia Rodriguez-Gago, “Beckett in Spain,” in Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot: A Casebook, ed. Ruby Cohn [New York: Macmillan, 1987], 45). The Irish premiere of Waiting for Godot took place on October 28, 1955, at the Pike Theatre in Dublin, directed by Alan Simpson, who corresponded with Beckett about the production. Its cast was Austin Byrne as Estragon, Dermot Kelly as Vladimir, Nigel FitzGerald as Pozzo, Donal Donnelly as Lucky, and Seamus Fitzmaurice as the boy. By autumn of 1955, plans were under way for an American production, which was to star comedians Bert Lahr and Tom Ewell, directed by Alan Schneider. Schneider accompanied Beckett to the London production, where, he recalled later, the author grasped his arm at various times and whispered, “It’s all wrahng! He’s doing it all wrahng!” (Entrances, A Director’s Journal [New York: Viking, 1986], 225). He disapproved of the use of music in the London production, hated its cluttered stage set, and disliked the “Anglican fervor” at its end; however, as Knowlson also notes, he approved Peter Hall’s direction and would have allowed him to do the New York production if he had been available, and he especially liked Peter Woodthorpe’s performance as Estragon (Damned to Fame 376). Beckett worked closely with Schneider on production values and, in a series of letters now published as No Author Better Served (ed. Maurice Harmon [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard, 1998]), explained carefully his vision of the play. The American premiere of Waiting for Godot occurred on January 3, 1956, at the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami, Florida. It was directed by Alan Schneider and starred Bert Lahr as Estragon, Tom Ewell as Vladimir, J. Scott Smart as Pozzo, Arthur Malet as Lucky, and Jimmy Oster as the boy. The play was promoted as the “laugh hit of two continents,” and when such expectations remained totally unfulfilled, the audiences hated it; many left at intermission on opening night, including newspaper columnist Walter Winchell. Tennessee Williams and William Saroyan were also in the first-night audience, stayed through the entire performance, and gave both play and performers a “bravo.” The producer, Michael Meyerburg, canceled a planned tour of Boston, Washington, and Philadelphia; though financial concerns were widely believed to be the reason for cancellation, Meyerberg claimed it was because “Pozzo got sick, Lucky was not able to go on at all, even at the first performance, and Ewell…was hysterical and impossible to control” (qtd. in Knowlson, Damned to Fame 379). Accordingly, the play was recast except for Bert Lahr before its Broadway opening, which took place on April 19, 1956, at the John Golden Theatre, directed by Herbert Berghof (who had previously directed it in an

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actors’ studio production in which he also starred) on a far simpler set than had been used in Miami. E. G. Marshall replaced Ewell as Vladimir, Kurt Kasznar was Pozzo, and Alvin Epstein was Lucky. The play, its director, and Lahr’s performance were widely praised; it ran for 59 performances. On November 19, 1957, the San Francisco Actors Workshop put on its production of Waiting for Godot in the North Dining Hall of the San Quentin prison, before 1,400 inmates, who listened attentively and understood the characters’ plights more clearly than many in noncaptive audiences. Reviews from the prison newspaper and an account from the San Francisco Chronicle are quoted at the beginning of the introduction of Martin Esslin’s The Theatre of the Absurd. The production was directed by Herbert Blau on a set designed by Robin Wagner. Among those in the audience of inmates was one Rick Cluchey, who later acted in some of Beckett’s plays while in prison, including a convict-cast and -directed production of Waiting for Godot in 1961, in which he played Vladimir. With guidance (and lessons) from Alan Mandell, a member of the San Francisco Actors Workshop, Cluchey’s company also produced Endgame and Krapp’s Last Tape; the former gallows room was turned into a 65-seat theater (Knowlson, Damned to Fame 540). Martin Esslin, then the head of radio drama at the BBC, learned of the production from Blau, included the account of it in his book, and eventually met Cluchey during a visit to California. When Cluchey’s sentence was later commuted by the governor to allow him the possibility of parole, he began touring prisons with the play, supported in part by the United States Information Service. Esslin helped arrange for the company to come to London, where the play was performed at the Open Space. Cluchey also did a BBC broadcast about his company, and Esslin gave him Beckett’s address and spoke to the playwright about him. He and Beckett first met in 1974, shortly before Beckett directed his own production of Godot in Berlin; Cluchey’s company, known as the San Quentin Drama Workshop, toured widely throughout the United States and Europe. Beckett became Cluchey’s patron and helped direct the workshop group. An all-black production of Waiting for Godot premiered in Boston in 1957 and transferred to the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway, where it ran for five performances from January 21 though 26. Estragon was played by Manton Moreland; Vladimir by Earle Hyman; Lucky by Geoffrey Holder; Pozzo by Rex Ingram, who weighed 265 pounds; and the boy by Bert Chamberlain. It was directed by Herbert Berghof. In 1961, En attendant Godot was produced at the Odéon Théâtre de France. Initially directed by Roger Blin, who left after the first several weeks of rehearsal to direct Jean Genet’s The Blacks at the Royal Court

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Theatre in London, it was then directed by Jean-Marie Serreau, with assistance from Beckett. It starred Lucien Raimbourg as Vladimir (in which role Beckett himself sometimes substituted), Etienne Berry as Estragon, Jean-Jacques Bourgois as Pozzo, and Jean Martin as Lucky. The tree was designed by the renowned minimalist sculptor Alberto Giacometti, who was a friend of both Beckett and Blin. In December 1960, Alan Schneider directed a television version of Waiting for Godot starring Zero Mostel (Estragon), Burgess Meredith (Vladimir), Kurt Kazner (Pozzo), and Alvin Epstein (Lucky). The full 102-minute version was first shown as part of the WNTA’s Play of the Week series during the week of April 3–8, 1961. It was subsequently made available through the Grove Press Film Division, and a 45-minute version of act 2 was distributed by Films for the Humanities, of Princeton, New Jersey. In 1961, a BBC television version of Waiting for Godot was directed by Donald McWhinnie, starring Jack MacGowran as Vladimir and Peter Woodthorpe as Estragon, reprising his role from the original London production. The action of the play was recorded with a single camera, often in tight close-ups and without cuts. MacGowran’s performance won him the British Television Actor of the Year award, though McWhinnie contended that “the play didn’t work on television. I don’t think it can. When you put Waiting for Godot on the small screen it loses the artificiality; it’s too realistic…. Beckett wasn’t too happy about it” (qtd. in Jordan R. Young, The Beckett Actor: Jack MacGowran, Beginning to End [Beverly Hills, Calif.: Moonstone Press, 1987], 77). On December 30, 1964, a new production of Waiting for Godot opened at the Royal Court Theatre in London, directed by Anthony Page (assisted by Beckett for three weeks) and designed by Timothy O’Brien. This, the “first unexpurgated version” to be produced on the London stage, starred Nicol Williamson as Vladimir, Alfred Lynch as Estragon, Jack MacGowran as Lucky, Paul Curran as Pozzo, and Kirk Martin as the boy. Beckett was especially satisfied with this production, remarking favorably on Williamson’s delivery of the “I can’t go on” speech so that it “ended up as a trumpet call…screamed at the audience with a trumpet voice” (remark to John Calder, qtd. in Knowlson, Damned to Fame 468). The play ran for 69 performances. In February 1965, Beckett responded to pleas from Albert Bessler, the dramaturgist of the Schiller-Theater, to come to Berlin to help with a production of Warten auf Godot being directed by Deryk Mendel; Beckett assisted the production for three weeks. Horst Bollmann and Stefan Wigger played Vladimir and Estragon, though Beckett considered them miscast

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and would have preferred for them to have exchanged roles; furthermore, the renowned actor Bernhard Minetti, as Pozzo, proved “quite undirectable” and gave what was in Beckett’s view “the worst performance he had ever seen from any actor” (Knowlson, Damned to Fame 469). Klaus Herm as Lucky met with his approval, however, and Gerhard Sprunkel played the boy. Beckett’s work with the production emphasized the practical problems of the play, ignoring its metaphysical aspects, which Mendel had emphasized. Much to Beckett’s surprise, the play was well received by both the public and the critics, and his collaboration with Mendel was praised. At the opening-night party, however, Beckett spoke of perhaps returning there one day to do his own production—which he did in 1975 (see below). In 1969 Beckett sought to prevent a production of Waiting for Godot that had been licensed for the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, directed by Sean Cotter and starring Peter O’Toole as Vladimir. It opened on December 1, with Beckett having succeeded only in limiting its performances to one month and preventing its inclusion in the theater’s repertory. He also declined an offer from O’Toole’s agent for television rights. The cast also included Donal McCann (Estragon), Des Cave (Lucky), Eamon Kelly (Pozzo), and Dan Figgis (the boy). The production was designed by Norah McGuinness. In 1970, with Beckett’s help, Roger Blin again directed a revival of En attendant Godot at the newly reopened Théâtre Récamier in Paris, as part of a three-month cycle of Beckett’s plays for which Blin was codirector with Jean-Louis Barrault. The cast consisted of Marc Eyraud (Estragon), Lucien Raimbourg (Vladimir), Michel Robin (Lucky), Armand Meffre (Pozzo), and Philipe Deutch or Denis Alland (the boy). The set was designed by Hubert Monloup. In February 1971, Alan Schneider directed an off-Broadway production of Waiting for Godot at the 200-seat Sheridan Square Playhouse in Greenwich Village. The play received excellent reviews and was praised by Barney Rossett, Beckett’s publisher at Grove Press, as the finest Godot he had seen. The original cast consisted of Henderson Forsythe as Vladimir, Paul B. Price as Estragon, Edward Winter as Pozzo, Anthony Holland as Lucky, and David Jay as the boy. The production was designed by William Ritman. Subsequent replacements for cast members included Oliver Clark and Warren Pincus (Estragon); Pincus, Jordan Charney, David Byrd, and Tom Ewell (Vladimir); Tom Rosqui and Dan Stone (Lucky); Larry Bryggman and Ed Bordo (Pozzo). Late in December 1974, Beckett arrived in Berlin to direct his own first production of Warten auf Godot for the Schiller-Theater, with a cast that

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he had specifically selected: Stefan Wigger (Estragon), Horst Bollmann (Vladimir), Martin Held (Pozzo), and Klaus Herm (Lucky). The boy was played by Torten Sense. At Beckett’s request also, stage designer Matias Henrioud had been commissioned to create the set and costumes; Walter Asmus was the assistant director, and Rick Cluchey (of the San Quentin Drama Workshop) worked as the second production assistant. The production was mounted on a plain raked stage with a rock and meager tree as its sole features. Dark “autumnal” costumes were designed to reflect the characters’ interdependence: Vladimir wore striped pants, as if from an old morning suit, combined with Estragon’s black jacket, which was too small for him (Vladimir); Estragon wore his own black trousers and Vladimir’s oversized striped jacket. Lucky’s checked waistcoat and Pozzo’s trousers were made from the same material, and Lucky’s shoes matched Pozzo’s hat; the same gray cloth was used for Pozzo’s jacket and Lucky’s trousers. As a director, Beckett emphasized the play’s repetition of words, gestures, movements, and themes; however, there were significant contrasts in the heights of Vladimir and Estragon as well as in the dominance of Pozzo and the submissiveness of Lucky. The play avoided all elements of naturalism, with Beckett explaining that it is a game, everything is a game. When all four of them are lying on the ground, that cannot be handled naturalistically. That has got to be done artificially, balletically. Otherwise everything becomes an imitation, an imitation of reality…. It should become clear and transparent, not dry. It is a game in order to survive. (qtd. in Walter Asmus, “Beckett Directs Godot,” Theatre Quarterly 5.19 [1975]: 23–24)

Although the production was tremendously successful, Beckett found the rehearsal process both exhausting and depressing; he complained that he was tired of theater and particularly of hearing the words of Godot over and over again. James Knowlson suggests that the basic problem was that no stage incarnation of the text could match the mental vision of it that Beckett had (Damned to Fame 537). Martin Held quit the production in mid-January due to illness and was replaced by Karl Raddatz. The four actors gave exceptional performances in this landmark production, with which Beckett himself was also pleased. Many visual gags were worked out in collaboration with the actors during rehearsal, and assistant director Asmus insists that Beckett was receptive to suggestions from members of the cast as well as Asmus himself. Nevertheless, Beckett closely

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followed the patterns of movement that he had worked out in advance and recorded (with arrows and diagrams) in a red notebook; they were, of course, adjusted according to the requirements and limitations of the available stage space. The notebook, edited by Dougald McMillan and James Knowlson, was published by Faber and Faber in 1993 and by Grove Press in 1994 as volume one of The Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett. For a detailed discussion of the correspondences between the stage iconography of Beckett’s production and paintings by Caspar David Friedrich, Pieter Brueghel the Elder, and Giovanni Bellini, see Knowlson’s Damned to Fame, 538–539. This production also toured Europe, and on April 22, 1976, opened at the Royal Court Theatre in London, where it ran for 13 performances. Also in 1976, Beckett’s agents in London were contacted by Mannie Manim, the artistic director of a professional theater group called the Company in Johannesburg, South Africa, seeking to perform Waiting for Godot during their first season at a new theater complex in what used to be the city’s Indian Fruit Market, now to be known as the Market Theatre. All previous requests to perform Beckett’s plays in South Africa had been denied, in protest against that country’s apartheid policies. Manim, however, was of mixed race himself and had chosen a black South African, Benjy Francis, to direct the play. The cast was intended to be multiracial, though when actually produced it was all black. Furthermore, Manim guaranteed that the play would be performed only in front of nonsegregated audiences. The license to perform the play was granted on May 18, 1976, with a stipulation in the contract that tickets were to be sold on a nondiscriminatory and multiracial basis. The actors and director of the play, who were not allowed to live in Johannesburg because of the Group Areas Act, traveled to the theater at great personal risk during the demonstrations, riots, and police crackdowns that occurred during the summer of 1976, and prospective audience members of both races often feared to leave their homes even though the play received good reviews from local critics. The season was nearly a financial disaster, though the theater’s quietly implemented nonracial policies were not challenged by the government. Manim reported that blacks made up only a small portion of the audience, though their numbers gradually increased. Subsequently, again with Beckett’s explicit approval, a mixed-race production of Waiting for Godot was performed at the Baxter Theatre at the University of Cape Town, directed by Donald Howarth. Vladimir and Estragon were played by black actors, John Kani and Winston Ntshona, who had been arrested after performing in Athol Fugard’s play Sizwe Bansai Is Dead in October 1976 in Butterworth town hall in the Transkei,

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touching off international protest demonstrations and demands for their release. Pozzo and Lucky were played by white actors, Bill Flynn and Peter Piccolo. Pozzo’s costume included the checked shirt and gumboots that were commonly associated with an Afrikaaner landlord, while Lucky was depicted as a white shantytown resident. Vladimir’s song at the beginning of act 2 was sung in Kani’s native South African dialect. The production was transferred to the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1980 and to the Old Vic in London in 1981. Although critics praised the production, they also asked whether the overtly political aspects of the production detracted from the play’s universality—or whether the addition of the absurdity of apartheid added to the physical and metaphysical absurdities already suggested by the text. On February 21, 1978, a revival of En attendant Godot, directed by Roger Blin, opened at the Odéon–Théâtre de France, with actors from the Comédie Française: Jean-Paul Roussillon (Estragon), Michel Aumont (Vladimir), Georges Riquier (Lucky), and François Chaumette (Pozzo). On May 25, 1978, a production of Waiting for Godot was directed by Walter Asmus at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City. Based closely on the 1975 Schiller-Theater production, on which Asmus had been Beckett’s assistant, it was billed as “Samuel Beckett’s Production.” The cast consisted of Austin Pendleton as Estragon, Sam Waterston as Vladimir, Milo O’Shea as Lucky, Michael Egan as Pozzo, and R. J. Murray Jr. as the boy. In June 1981, Max Wall and Trevor Peacock played Vladimir and Estragon at the Round House Theatre in London in a production that emphasized the Laurel and Hardy aspects of the script and was praised for its vaudevillian technique. Relying heavily on caricature and comic gesture, Wall—a renowned former British music-hall comedian—played Vladimir as a “fallen” British aristocrat, whose style and mannerisms were contrasted to Peacock’s Cockney eloquence as Estragon. Pozzo, played by Wolfe Morris, was an exaggerated member of the British aristocracy. As Lucky, Gary Waldhorn emphasized the character’s physical deformity and mental confusion. Wall also appeared in productions of Krapp’s Last Tape and Film and performed readings from Malone Dies. A London Weekend Television South Bank Show entitled Max Wall’s Beckett featured these performances. On July 15, 1982, a production of Waiting for Godot opened at the Young Vic Theatre in London, directed by Ken Campbell. Its cast was Jonathan Barlow (Estragon), Andy Rashleigh (Vladimir), John Sessions (Lucky), Don Crann (Pozzo), and Robert Packham (the boy). The set was designed by Bernard Culshaw.

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In March and April 1984, the San Quentin Drama Workshop presented another production of Waiting for Godot for the Adelaide Festival in Australia. The funding that Cluchey had obtained was dependent on Beckett’s involvement with the production, so he agreed to “oversee” or “survey” it from London if it were to be directed by Walter Asmus. Asmus began rehearsals in Chicago, where Cluchey was then living, and they were moved to London in February for Beckett’s help at Riverside Studios. In what Beckett termed a “moonlight production” (qtd. in Knowlson, Damned to Fame 606), the humor was subdued and a tone of melancholy prevailed. Though Beckett gave credit to Asmus’s direction “in collaboration with the author,” he considered the production “very presentable.” He was particularly impressed with the performance of J. Pat Miller as Lucky: Knowlson records that when Beckett first heard his rendition of Lucky’s tirade, the “overwhelming and searing” performance brought tears to the playwright’s eyes—and that Beckett told Miller that he was the best Lucky he had ever seen (Damned to Fame 607). Several months later, J. Pat Miller died of AIDS. The others in the cast were Lawrence Held as Estragon, Bud Thorpe as Vladimir, Rick Cluchey as Pozzo, and Louis Beckett Cluchey as the boy. Also in 1984, Ilan Ronan directed a production of Waiting for Godot at the Haifa Municipal Theatre in Israel. In this overtly political production, which relied on a bilingual translation into Arabic and Hebrew, Vladimir (Makhram Khouri) and Estragon (Yussef Abu-Warda) were transformed into Palestinian laborers who wore workmen’s clothing and spoke Arabic (with Vladimir using a popular vernacular common among villagers, and Estragon using a dialect more associated with the city). Scenes involving Pozzo (Ilan Toren) and Lucky (Doron Tavori) were given partially in Hebrew. Iron scaffolding atop a concrete pole replaced the tree on the set, and it was surrounded by construction blocks instead of stones. For further details, see Ronan’s “Waiting for Godot as Political Theatre,” in Directing Beckett, ed. Lois Oppenheim (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994). On November 25, 1987, the first production of Waiting for Godot to be performed at the National Theatre in London opened in The Lyttleton Theatre, directed by Michael Rudman. It starred John Alderton as Estragon, Alec McCowen as Vladimir, Colin Welland as Pozzo (later replaced by Terence Rigsby), Peter Wight as Lucky, and Simon Privett/Simon Doe as the boy. This production followed Beckett’s staging at the Schiller-Theater in 1975 and the San Quentin Drama Workshop’s production in 1984. William Dudley’s set, however, changed Beckett’s country road into a twolane highway (complete with broken white line) along a sloped and rocky bank.

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The first Chinese production of Waiting for Godot, entitled Dengdai Geduo, was staged by the Yangtze Theatre in 1987, given by students at the Shanghai Drama Institute. In 1988, Waiting for Godot, Endgame, and Krapp’s Last Tape were produced in television versions by the San Quentin Drama Workshop as directed by the author and Walter Asmus. The project was made possible by a major production grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and matching funds from private and public sources in France; it was a coproduction with Caméras Continentales, La S.E.P.T., La S.F.P., FR 3, Radio Televiseo Portuguesa, and Visual Press. The Visual Press (directed by Professor Mitchell Lifton of the University of Maryland, College Park) was given permission to distribute the completed work under the title Beckett Directs Beckett. The cast of the English-language version consisted of Rick Cluchey as Vladimir, Lawrence Held as Estragon, Bud Thorpe as Pozzo, Alan Mandell as Lucky, and Louis Beckett Cluchey as the boy. A French-language version produced on the same set featured Rufus as Vladimir, Jean-François Balmer as Estragon, Jean-Pierre Jorris as Pozzo, Roman Polanski as Lucky, and Philippe Deschamps as L’Enfant. On August 30, 1988, the Gate Theatre of Dublin opened its production of Waiting for Godot, directed by Walter Asmus, with Barry McGovern as Estragon, Tom Hickey as Vladimir, Stephen Brennan as Lucky, Alan Stanford as Pozzo, and Eamon Young or Tom Lawlor as the boy. Louis de Brocquy, a Dublin artist, designed the graffiti-strewn set; the lighting was done by Rupert Murray. The production included the changes that Beckett made for the 1975 Schiller-Theater production. Asmus improvised a moment of contact between Lucky and Pozzo by having Pozzo pick up Lucky’s bags and place them in Lucky’s hands with a clasp of his own hand over Lucky’s. In the second act, with their situations reversed, Lucky restored Pozzo to himself with his rope and whip. The Lincoln Center production of Waiting for Godot, directed by Mike Nichols, ran from October 11 through November 27, 1988. It starred Robin Williams as Estragon, Steve Martin as Vladimir, Bill Irwin as Lucky, F. Murray Abraham as Pozzo, and Lukas Haas as the boy—an all-star cast that led to much public clamor for tickets. Critical opinion was divided over this “Americanization” of the play, however. The play began with a droning sound like bombers leaving a mission of destruction; this gradually turned into a drumroll and culminated in a cymbal crash like that turning on the lights at a circus. Williams and Martin were viewed more as themselves than as Beckett’s characters, ad-libbing, carrying on extraneous business, and putting shtick in place of silence. Thus, for example, while Lucky’s speech was being delivered slowly and pompously, as a parody of

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an academic lecture, Gogo approached a member of the audience to borrow a program, as if to check the actor’s name; Didi asked someone the time. As Lucky, Bill Irwin spread sand from his pocket onto the sand from the desert in order to do his soft-shoe dance; however, he did not retain Lucky’s characteristic drool and white hair. The set, designed by Tony Walton, was a stretch of Nevada highway that was cluttered with debris: hubcaps, animal skulls, rusty metal springs, tumbleweeds, a large black tire, and abandoned car parts littered the sand-strewn stage. The whirr of crickets and cicadas filled the Beckettian silence. As a curtain call, the actors all came out and motioned in the direction of someone offstage, inviting him to join them, although, of course, Godot did not arrive. Consistently throughout his lifetime, Beckett opposed all requests to allow Waiting for Godot to be produced with a female cast, whether appearing as women or as men. His explanation often was that women have no prostates—an enlargement of which is the (unstated) reason why Vladimir leaves the stage to urinate. Primarily, however, Beckett considered the characters to be distinctively male, and he sometimes compared the difference in men’s and women’s voices in the roles to differences among musical instruments. In the 1980s, however, several women’s acting companies put on the play without Beckett’s permission or without advising his agent about the casting. In May 1982, Beckett received a plea from a Frau Osterkamp regarding a female cast of Waiting for Godot in Regensburg, Germany; she sought permission to take it to the Berlin Festival—to which Beckett assented provided that it go no further and that his “total disapproval” be made clear to the audience (Knowlson, Damned to Fame 744, n. 52). In 1988, the Denver Center Theater Company had contracted the play before disclosing that it would be cast with women. Directed by Randal Mylar, it starred Ann Guilbert and Kathleen Brady-Garvin. The production did not acknowledge the gender of the actors; all character references in the script remained “he,” and the costumes and mannerisms of the characters remained male. Nevertheless, the company was obligated to include a statement in the production’s program that “Samuel Beckett wrote Waiting for Godot for five male characters and has never approved otherwise” (Ben-Zvi, “Women in Godot,” The Beckett Circle: Newsletter of the Samuel Beckett Society 10:1 [Fall, 1988] p. 7). The gender issue gained much public attention in 1988 when Beckett refused permission for an all-women’s cast of Waiting for Godot to be produced by a Dutch theater company, De Haarlemse Toneelschuur. Legal action was taken, and the case came to court in April 1988 with Dutch lawyer J. M. van Veggel representing the French Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Français, which was acting on Beckett’s behalf. He argued that

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the integrity of the text was violated if women actors impersonated men, also raising the issues of vocal quality; he also contended that Beckett had been misled by not being informed of the planned change. The judge, who read the play and saw the production in question, ruled that since it had remained close to the dialogue as written and followed the stage directions, the integrity of the play had not been violated. He also cited arguments in favor of mixed-race casting and maintained that since the play was about the human condition in general it could be played by women or men; he noted that there had been no desire for scandal, sensation, or feminist polemics as part of the production. Angry at having lost the case, Beckett banned all productions of his plays in the Netherlands. In the aftermath of this decision and a similar controversy over a production of Endgame in Boston in 1985 by the American Repertory Theatre (in which the play had been set in a vandalized underground subway and had been given a musical overture composed by Philip Glass), Beckett’s contracts for productions in a number of countries specified that there were to be no additions, omissions, or alterations to the texts of the play or the stage directions; furthermore, no music, special effects, or other supplementary materials should be added without explicit permission. This position has been maintained by the Samuel Beckett Estate, whose position, as reported in the Times Literary Supplement of April 1, 1994 (quoting a letter to the Guardian), is that when approached by a theatre or director for the rights to perform a Beckett play, the estate’s agents go through the contract and point out the clauses relating to the integrity of the text and stage directions and the fact that they must be adhered to…. There are more than 15 recordings of Beethoven’s late string quartets in the catalogue, every interpretation different, one from the next, but they are all based on the same notes, tonalities, dynamic and tempo markings. We feel justified in asking the same measure of respect for Samuel Beckett’s plays. (14)

This practice has touched off a continuing debate within theatrical and literary communities over the extent to which a playwright or his or her estate can or should have absolute control over the production of his or her works. It is often noted that when Beckett directed his own plays he often changed lines and stage directions to an extent that is being fully realized only with the publication of his theatrical notebooks and studies based on them. Also in 1988, Waiting for Godot was directed by Andrew Sofer for Island Theatre Workshop at the outdoor Tisbury Amphitheatre in Martha’s Vine-

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yard, Massachusetts. The cast included Steve Levine as Vladimir, Amos Kamil as Estragon, Sarah Wilson as Pozzo, and Rae Lane as Lucky. The site-specific performance featured the naturally occurring country road, tree, and evening, with a stump for Gogo’s mound; performances began at 5:30 in order to coincide with twilight. Its most intriguing innovation, however, was the decision to cast two brothers as the boy: Jesse Levine, aged about 10, played the boy in the first act, and his 12-year-old brother, Gabe Levine, assumed the role in the second act. Though the brothers had similar physical appearances (hence could have been the same boy or the brother that the text of the play mentions), noticeable differences in height and age implied a disparity in stage time between the characters and the playworld. If, indeed, only one day had passed for the characters, much more seemed to have passed for the boy—if it was the same boy, which both the casting and the text left open to interpretation. In 1989, a production of Waiting for Godot at the Lyric Players Theatre in Belfast, Northern Ireland, featured an Irish Vladimir (played by Ian McElhinney) and an English Estragon (Mark Drewry). Oliver Maguire was Pozzo, and Noel McGee appeared as Lucky. The production was directed by Tim Webb on a set designed by Laura Pritchard. A review in the Irish Times (25 February 1989) complained that having the actors enter the audience displaced the play’s metatheatrical jokes. Others complained that Lucky’s tirade had been shortened. Also in 1989, there was a production of Waiting for Godot at London’s Young Vic Theatre, directed by David Thacker. It was notable particularly for its use of rhythm, as in the three-beat rhythm of Lucky’s limp. From February 1 to March 17, 1990, Joël Jouanneau’s production of En attendant Godot was presented at the Théâtre des Amandiers in Paris. The cast included David Warrilow as Vladimir, Philippe Demarle as Estragon, Christian Ruche as Pozzo, and Claude Melki as Lucky. Jouanneau claimed that his production was inspired by the fundamental questions of What is a tramp today? and Are there Vladimirs and Estragons around us? Accordingly, he placed his production of Godot in a new setting of an underworld of hooligans and rock culture; the setting was an apparently abandoned railway yard strewn with litter and pieces of iron and covered with graffiti. The tree was an object made of electrical wires, with a small cabin in whose kicked-open door Didi sits; in the second act, its “leaves” were indicated by three green lamps. As Vladimir, Warrilow wore a railway worker’s outfit, including a cap; Estragon was played as a generation younger than Vladimir (ignoring the text’s references to the decades that they have supposedly spent together) and as a punk hooligan. Lucky’s dance was performed to circuslike music, and in the second act Pozzo was

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suspended in the air in a net (instead of having the characters lying about on the ground). Lucky’s monologue was shortened, with the last part of it played as a recording from offstage, and, as in the Lincoln Center production, various gags were added to the text. During the Dublin Theatre Festival in 1991, a special Beckett Festival was held from October 1 through 20, during which Ireland in effect “reclaimed” Beckett as its own. The Gate Theatre staged all 19 of Beckett’s plays in nine separate performances, while Radio Telefis Éireann broadcast over 15 radio and television productions during the same three weeks. The production of Waiting for Godot, directed by Walter Asmus, brought together much of the cast from the 1988 version: Alan Stanford and Stephen Brennan re-created their roles as Pozzo and Lucky; Barry McGovern, who played Estragon in 1988, was Vladimir in this revival; Estragon was played by Johnny Murphy. The set designer for the festival was Robert Ballagh, with lighting design by Alan Burrett; the tree for Godot was designed by the artist Louis le Brocquy. This production was generally the most acclaimed of the entire festival, with many critics citing the authentic Irish voices giving it a particular drollery that made it seem particularly fresh even to those long familiar with the play. This production was taken to the International Theatre Festival of Chicago from June 16–23, 1992, performed at DePaul University’s Blackstone Theatre. Another controversial all-female production took place in Paris from July 9 through August 2, 1991, given by the Brut de Beton company under the direction of Bruno Boussagol at the Avignon Festival. The cast included Thérèse Bosc, Brigitte Marion, and Natacha Nouche. A Parisian judge allowed the production to go forward provided that a letter of objection from Jérôme Lindon, Beckett’s legal representative, be read before each performance. Although Lindon had sought to block the production, contending that the play was about male characters and would be deformed by an all-woman cast, the judge ruled that it would not cause excessive damage to Beckett’s legacy, whereas cancellation would harm the theater company. In London in 1991, Waiting for Godot also received its first West End revival in 35 years when it was produced at the Queen’s Theatre with Rik Mayall and Ad Edmondson, who were the stars of the raucous television series The Young Ones, which had been broadcast in the United States on MTV after its initial run in England; in some ways live-action forebears of Beavis and Butthead, they were then appearing in an eight-part BBC series entitled Bottom (which the weekly guide Time Out described as television for drunken teenagers). The pair seemed particularly unlikely admirers— much less interpreters—of Beckett’s work, but in an interview Zoë Heller

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published in The Independent on Sunday (22 September 1991), Mayall explained his admiration for Beckett and the nature of his influence: “A lot of our early stuff was Beckett piss-takes…. I like the simplicity. I like the vulgarity. I like the violence. I like the uniqueness of it—the way it doesn’t fit in and it annoys people” (qtd. in Stan Gontarski, “Fartov and Belcher Tackle Godot,” The Beckett Circle: Newsletter of the Samuel Beckett Society 13.1 [Fall 1991], 6). The stage set by Derek Jarman and Madeleine Morris was full of mossy crags and crevices, amid which Didi and Gogo could hide from the approaching Pozzo and Lucky. The tree was a massive blasted oak that could never be mistaken for a bush or shrub, and it was wide enough for both to hide behind. Under the direction of Les Blair, the dialogue was delivered at rapid-fire pace, without the pauses or silences called for in the script; as in the Lincoln Center production, ad-libs and improvisations with the audience were included. As Lucky, Christopher Ryan wore long black clerical garb and delivered the tirade with conviction; the name of his dance was changed, however, from “The Scapegoat’s Agony” or “The Hard Stool” to “The Dying Duck” and “The Constipated Man.” The line “People are bloody ignorant apes” became “People are cunts.” This was, Gontarski remarked, an “updating…for the post-literate generation…[and] theatre for the psychobabble generation nourished on sports commentary, AM radio, and MTV” (6), though he admired the vitality and the dynamic rapport that the stars brought to their roles, introducing Beckett’s work to a new generation. Godex Has Come, by Corneliu Mitrache, a self-described “sequel” to Waiting for Godot, was presented by the Mossbach Theatre Company at the Greenwich Street Theatre in New York from May 23 to June 16, 1991, directed by Daniel Andries. In May, a work entitled Stakeout at Godot’s by Draco Jancar was presented by Scena Theatre at the Joy of Motion Dance Theatre in Washington, D.C.; it was directed by Robert McNamara. In Montreal, the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde presented its production of En attendant Godot from January 21 through February 15, 1992, directed by André Brassard. Pozzo, played by Jean-Louis Millette, was dressed as a French aristocrat and arrived onstage in a carriage pulled by Lucky (Alexis Martin). Vladimir was played by Normand Chouinard, and Remy Girard played Estragon. In April 1992, the Dutch National Theatre (Het Nationaal Toneel)’s production of Wachten op Godot was performed as part of the Samuel Beckett Festival in The Hague. It starred Jules Royaards and Bert André as Vladimir and Estragon. The set was designed by Santiago del Corral. The Belgian director Franz Marijnen carefully respected the play’s stage directions and traditions, but critics and audiences alike found the play

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overlong and dull. In the aftermath of the legal action that Beckett had taken there in 1988 over the all-female version of the play, many reviewers focused on the extent to which specific stage directions had or had not been followed exactly. From November 5 through 8, 1992, a revival of Herbert Berghof’s shortlived 1957 all-black Broadway production of Waiting for Godot was staged at HB Studios in New York, as part of its first annual Herbert Berghof Retrospective. Earle Hyman, then best known as the Huxtables’ grandfather on The Cosby Show on NBC, reprised his role as Didi, and Arthur French played Gogo. Berghof’s notes to the original production were reprinted in the program for the retrospective, including his remark that “It is Samuel Beckett who tells me that only he who retains a clear eyesight for all the flaws of his beloved, loves truly” (qtd. in Ehren Fordyce, “Godot at HB Studios in New York,” The Beckett Circle: Newsletter of the Samuel Beckett Society 15.1 [Spring 1993]: 3). In August 1993, the novelist and essayist Susan Sontag directed her own radically revised version of Waiting for Godot in war-torn Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. In an interview with Erika Munk, which was entitled “Only the Possible,” Sontag explained that hers was an absolutely unorthodox but, I think, valid reading because of the play’s unique construction. The second act is formally—though not substantively—identical with the first act…. There are two endings, two departures, so they are tremendously deflated. Since it’s the only play in world literature that’s constructed that way, it’s the only play you could do this with…there is an argument to be made that you can do the whole of Waiting for Godot by doing only the words of its first act…. It seemed to me that it was more passionate, and crueler in a way, to have only the text of the first act but to expand it, so that you have three pairs of Vladimirs and Estragons. They do three variations on the theme of the couple…. I wouldn’t be surprised…if Beckett originally conceived the play as one act. (“Only the Possible: An Interview with Susan Sontag,” qtd. in Rosette C. Lamont, letter to the editor, The Beckett Circle: Newsletter of the Samuel Beckett Society 16.1 [Spring 1994]: 4. See also Erika Munk, “Notes from a Trip to Sarajevo,” Theater 24.3 [1993]: 31–36)

The three pairs of Vladimirs and Estragons, who were all onstage at once, were played by two men at the center of the stage, two women on the left, and a man and a woman on the right. Furthermore, Pozzo was played by a woman, and the boy was played by an adult. For Sontag’s description of the production, see “Godot Comes to Sarajevo,” The New York Review

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of Books (21 October 1993), 55–58; for critical assessment of it, see Lois Oppenheim, “Playing with Beckett’s Plays: On Sontag in Sarajevo and Other Directorial Infidelities,” Journal of Beckett Studies n.s., 4.2 (Spring 1995): 35–46. In the interview with Munk, Sontag also indicated that she omitted the second act in Sarajevo in order to keep the performance under one and a half hours; she also said that if, outside Sarajevo, she were to include the second act, she would use only one pair of actors for Vladimir and Estragon, better to fit its “image of the shrunken world, [with] Pozzo and Lucky reduced”(qtd. in “Only the Possible,” p. 36). In December 1993, a post–Roger Blin, post–Alan Schneider, post– Samuel Beckett version of En attendant Godot was produced by the Compagnie ARRT at the Théâtre de la Tempête (Cartoucheries de Vincennes) in Paris, where it received widespread critical praise. Directed by Philippe Adrien, it starred Bruno Putzulz as Vladimir and Eric Caravaca as Estragon. In his program notes, Adrien explained that Estragon (who, he and his students had discovered, was not identical with Vladimir) had suffered une catastrophe psychique, which had plunged him into despair. Vladimir, aware of this, shields his friend from the shame of its having been discovered and tries to rescue him from the void. Seeking a “natural simplicity,” Adrien also sought to avoid turning the play into an exercice de style and freely disregarded Beckett’s stage directions. For example, Vladimir entered first, running widening circles on the expanse of sand that extended around the tree, then shadow-boxing, accompanied by loud music. Estragon carried what appeared to be part of a cross in his knapsack so that he appeared to be tied to it. Pozzo, played by Cyril Dubreuil, was depicted as a circus barker or street hawker, and Lucky (Gildas Milin) was like a wild beast and harnessed like a horse; he loudly moaned and groaned, sometimes frothing at the mouth and drooling, obviously posing a threat to anyone except his master. Both were much weakened in the second act, when Pozzo had grown a long white beard of the kind that Godot is said to have. The boy (Jean-Luc Orofino) was a grotesque, Felliniesque, apelike, cavorting dwarf. In October 1993, The Courtyard Playhouse in New York’s Greenwich Village presented a far more “straightforward” production of Waiting for Godot, directed by Alan Benditt, who also played Vladimir. Estragon was played by Howard Thoreson. As Pozzo, George McGrath wore a threepiece plaid suit in the first act but stripped to sagging, white long underwear in the second. Stephen Gleason, as Lucky, delivered the tirade slowly, with pauses at its more obvious points of transition. Colin Fisher played the boy, and Laura Zambrano designed the lighting for the small stage’s austere set.

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From February 9 through March 5, 1994, Waiting for Godot was produced in London by Efendi Productions, directed by Lisa Forrell with what Julie Campbell, the reviewer for The Beckett Circle, described as “unusual and disconcerting speed” in a setting that relocated the play “from ‘nowhere’ to ‘somewhere,’ perhaps Egypt or Turkey, or even Armenia, but certainly somewhere ‘other’” (16.1 [Spring 1994]: 9). Nadim Sawalha as Vladimir and Kevork Malikyan as Estragon alternated naturalistic and stylized acting styles, defamiliarizing the play and making its Christian allusions more obtrusive in this non-Western cultural context. The set was a desert strewn with stones and potshards and included some hieroglyphics; the tree was reduced to what Campbell described as a “spindly branch, with twigs at the top…pointing vainly in opposite directions” (9). Marking his debut as the director of Le Théâtre de la Tempête in the Cartoucherie in Paris, Philippe Adrien presented his production of En attendant Godot from September 6 through September 29, 1994; a previous version had been staged in 1993 for the Festival des Chantiers de Blaye, performed by his students from the Conservatoire d’art dramatique. Spectators entered the theater by crossing the sand-covered stage, and at the end of each act the boy came onstage through a hole in a wall. Eric Petitjean, as Vladimir, tended to dance and jump like a boxer due to his bladder problem; Eric Caravaca, as Estragon, carried a piece of wood in his backpack, a constant burden and perhaps a form of cross for him to bear. As Lucky, Gildas Milin was covered in mud, drooled heavily, and resembled a swamp-monster; for a time, he stood as if crucified in front of the tree. Cyril Dubreuil played Pozzo. Also in 1994, two commercial productions of Waiting for Godot were produced in Tokyo, where the play had first been performed in 1960 but had remained almost exclusively a work presented at noncommercial venues. The first production, at the Tokyo Art Theatre, was staged from April 2 through April 10 as part of the Tokyo Metropolitan Arts Festival. It was adapted by Sho´oji Ko´ogami and featured two prominent actresses, Kazuko Shiraishi as Vladimir and Tomoko Mari-ya as Estragon. The second, directed by Yukio Ninagawa, ran from October 6 through November 3 and was a “twin” production featuring male and female casts on alternate nights. The male version was performed by Ko´o Nishimura as Vladimir and To´oru Emori as Estragon in the traditional Western-style hobo garb associated with their characters. Pozzo, however, was costumed as a typical Japanese yakuza, with Lucky as his lackey. The female cast wore bowler hats over richly woven but tattered geisha-style kimonos; Etsuko Ichihara was Vladimir and Mako Midori played Estragon. Pozzo was presented in elaborate Kabuki attire as a

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traditional manipulator of monkey shows, with Lucky as his overfed, manipulated simian performer. In 1995, Waiting for Godot was directed by David Wheeler for the American Repertory Theatre, where the controversial subway-set production of Endgame had resulted in litigation 10 years before. Alvin Epstein, who played Lucky in the Broadway premiere of Godot, was Estragon in this production, and Jeremy Geidt played Vladimir; their long experience with Beckett plays was evident in their much-acclaimed performances. Benjamin Evett as Lucky, Remo Airaldi as Pozzo, and Andy Hyman as the boy completed the cast, and the set, which was littered with logs and stumps, was designed by Derek McLane. From September 1, 1995, through February 16, 1996, the Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre’s production of Waiting for Godot was presented in New York City. Directed by Eve Adamson, it starred Harris Berlinsky as Vladimir and Craig Smith as Estragon. As Lucky, Kennedy Brown wore ultraformal attire but walked with a crouched and bow-legged gait, while Abner Genece’s performance as Pozzo alternated between joviality and nearly psychopathic sadism. Both acts of the play were preceded by brief but cacophonous music. In 1996, Bill Irwin, the much-acclaimed clown who was cast as Lucky in the 1988 Lincoln Center production, played Vladimir in a production of Waiting for Godot directed by Doug Hughes at the Seattle Repertory Theatre. Stephen Spinella played Estragon, and John Alyward as Pozzo and Denis O’Hare as Lucky entered the stage area down a long aisle through the audience. The production was noted for Irwin’s physical comedy and the actors’ unusually animated faces. In Paris, En attendant Godot was produced at the Théâtre du Rond-Pont des Champs-Elysées (Salle Renaud-Barrault) from November 5, 1996, through January 25, 1997. It was directed by Patrice Kerbrat. An undulating, transparent blue veil was lowered in front of the set before the play began and removed before the opening line was said. The stage set, designed in 1950s style by Edouard Laug, was painted bright red with a blue backdrop, with a neon sign suspended at the front of the stage illuminating the words “Route à la Campagne” (a country road). In the second act, a second sign showed the same words backward: “engapmaC al á etouR.” Vladimir (played by Pierre Arditi) and Estragon (Marcel Maréchal, also the director of the Théâtre du Rond–Pont) were dressed as elegant travelers in long black coats and shiny black shoes. Pozzo was played by Robert Hirsch, one of France’s best-known and most popular actors, who emphasized the theatricality of Pozzo’s ostentatious gestures; Jean-Michel Dupuis was Lucky. The boy appeared with Hermes-like wings on his bowler hat.

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In New York City, as part of the Lincoln Center 1996 Summer Festival (from July 29 through August 11), Beckett’s entire 19-play theatrical oeuvre was offered in a revival of the Gate Theatre (Dublin) repertory productions from 1991. Walter Asmus again directed Godot, which was mounted in the cavernous theater of the John Jay School of Criminal Justice, several blocks south of Lincoln Center itself. The cast comprised Barry McGovern as Vladimir, Johnny Murphy as Estragon, Alan Sanford as Pozzo, and Stephen Brennan as Lucky, whose tirade was delivered unusually slowly in order to emphasize its eloquence. The entire production emphasized the beauty and rhythms (particularly Irish) of Beckett’s language. Also in 1996, in Buenos Aires, the well-known Argentinean actress Leonor Manso made her directorial debut with a production of Waiting for Godot that was based on the Faber edition of the revised text by James Knowlson, incorporating many of Beckett’s revisions in his own stagings. The cast included Patricio Contreras as Estragon, Pompeyo Audivert as Vladimir, Miguel Guerberof (Argentina’s foremost director/actor in Beckett’s plays) was Pozzo, and Alicia Berdaxagar as Lucky. Her characterization of Lucky was as a desolate and seemingly unsexed being whose intonation of the tirade was zombielike despite the requisite stammering. In part because of its much-acclaimed all-star cast, the play enjoyed an unusually long run for a nonmusical or popular commercial hit. Czekajçac Na Godota, the Polish translation of Waiting for Godot by Antoni Libera, was produced at the Teatr Dramatyczny in Warsaw in 1996 and directed by Libera himself (who also directed the production of Endgame at Lincoln Center). The cast featured Slawomir Orzechowski as Estragon, Jaroslaw Gajewski as Vladimir, Adam Ferency (one of Poland’s leading actors) as Pozzo, Sebastian Konrad as Lucky, and Ja Libera the director’s son as the boy. The primarily gray set was designed by Ewa Starowieyskya; taking their seats on six rows of onstage risers, theatergoers had their backs to the ornate interior of the vast theater, the cavernous emptiness of which, in effect, became not only a part of the setting but a fine spatial metaphor for the play’s void. From June to December of 1997, 42 years after he directed the first London production of Beckett’s play, Peter Hall staged Waiting for Godot at the Old Vic in London, with Ben Kingsley as Estragon, Alan Howard as Vladimir, Denis Quilley as Pozzo, and Greg Hicks as Lucky, whose presentation of the tirade was naturalistic and implied a kind of understanding behind the “thinking,” a relatively unorthodox rendition of that speech. When Estragon suddenly whipped the hat from Lucky’s head (from a position behind him), Lucky not only stopped thinking but fainted. The production tended to emphasize the play’s humor, and the set was similar

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to that of the Odéon production that Beckett supervised in 1961, with the tree designed by Giacometti. The hat exchange was performed slowly and deliberately, unlike the Marx Brothers style that is frequently seen. Later in 1997, Hall’s production was taken to Sydney, Australia. In September, during the Sydney Olympics Festival of the Dreaming, there was also an Aboriginal version of Waiting for Godot, titled Ngundalelah Godotgai when translated into Bandjalang—a language that has no words for “yesterday,” “today,” or “tomorrow.” The Gate Theatre production from Dublin was given six performances in Melbourne, Australia, beginning on October 21, 1997, at one of the Victorian Arts Centre’s two main theaters, the Playhouse. Barry McGovern and Johnny Murphy appeared in the roles of Vladimir and Estragon, with Alan Stanford as Pozzo and Pat Kinevane as Lucky. Controversy surrounded another production of Waiting for Godot in London in 1997 when its director, Katie London, wrote an article titled “The Beckett Estate Proudly Presents…Waiting for Permission,” published in the Guardian on May 3, 1997. The play ran from May 6 to May 10 in Brentford (just outside London), but the London rights to present the Tottering Bipeds production had been refused so that it would not compete with Peter Hall’s version in June. Noting that many of Beckett’s characters “are disabled,” the director cast actors with actual physical impairments as Vladimir and Estragon: Jamie Beddard, who played Estragon, had very limited mobility, and Simon Startin as Vladimir compensated for his friend’s relative stasis. The tree, situated on a small platform, was where Estragon spent much of the play; one of the branches was strategically placed to support him while standing. Pozzo was played by Uri Roodner, the cofounder of Tottering Bipeds. Audiences responded warmly to the actors’ enthusiasm, their ability, and the director’s skill in working with their physical limitations to create a credible and creditable production. From February 21 through March 8, 1998, Waiting for Godot was produced at the Sixteenth Annual Shaw Festival at the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, where it was directed by J. R. Sullivan as a companion piece to Shaw’s Too True to be Good. The stage set, designed by J. Branson, included concrete barricades, street signs, and road reflectors, making it appear as if Vladimir and Estragon were on the shoulder of a modern highway along which no vehicles appeared. The production emphasized the comic and vaudeville qualities of the play, with rapid delivery of the dialogue and high-speed movements that overshadowed the characters’ physical discomfort and metaphysical anxieties. The cast included John Kishline as Vladimir, James Tasse as Estragon, and Daniel Mooney as Pozzo.

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During the 1997 season of the Stratford Festival at Stratford, Ontario, Canada, Waiting for Godot was produced at the Tom Patterson Theatre, where it was directed by the renowned actor Brian Bedford. Vladimir and Estragon were played by Tom McCamus and Stephen Ouimette, respectively, both of whom are accomplished Shakespearean actors and were appearing in Julius Caesar and Much Ado about Nothing as part of the season’s repertory that was concurrent with Godot. James Blendick was Pozzo, Tim McDonald was Lucky, and Phillip Psutka was the boy. The set, designed by Ming Cho Lee, placed a faux proscenium arch at the end of the Tom Patterson’s thrust stage, and the production emphasized the play’s metatheatricality and the vaudevillian aspects of its plot. Accordingly, a scratchy recording of rather tinny music was played before each of the two acts, and the moon was lowered from the ceiling on a creaky chain. Some of the jokes were punctuated with “rim-shots” from an offstage (unseen) drummer—an interpolation that unfortunately distorted an otherwise quite faithful production by implying the reactive presence of an unknown and unseen observer or auditor for Vladimir and Estragon, analogous to the unknown ringer of the bell in Happy Days. The production was reprised during the festival’s 1998 season. The production of Waiting for Godot that was staged at the Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C., from September 2 through October 4, 1998, emphasized the play’s relationship to the vaudeville tradition. Directed by Joy Zinoman, it featured two African American actors, Thomas W. Jones II as Vladimir and Donald Griffin as Estragon, whose appearances parodied the racial caricatures of the American minstrelsy tradition: they appeared with white makeup encircling their lips and their faces blackened, evoking the image of Tambo and Bones, end men in traditional minstrel shows; the actors’ bodies were choreographed to seem particularly lithe and rubberlike, and at times their poses evoked that of Thomas D. Rice in his Jim Crow role. The production began as Vladimir, whose trousers were down to his ankles, was painfully trying to relieve himself against the bare tree. At times during the performance Vladimir and Estragon left the stage to perch next to members of the audience or to run up and down the theater’s steps; hip-hop routines, black slang, and saxophone music were also included in the production. The slave Lucky was played by a white actor, Hugh Nees, and Michael Tolaydo was Pozzo. The production’s innovations reignited public controversy with the Beckett estate over the amount of control that the author’s representatives can rightfully exercise over presentation of the play. A far more traditional and rather elegiac production of Waiting for Godot was directed by Andrei Belgrader at the Classic Stage Company in New

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York City from November 10 to December 21, 1998, starring well-known actors from movies and television: John Turturro as Estragon, Tony Shalhoub as Vladimir, Christopher Lloyd as Pozzo, Richard Spore as Lucky, and Amadeo Turturro as the boy. Spore’s delivery of Lucky’s tirade was prolonged and painstaking, with Vladimir and Estragon eventually gesturing wildly for him to get on with it; Lloyd as Pozzo was costumed like a circus ringmaster. In Chicago, a production of Waiting for Godot by Remy Bummpo Productions was staged at the Victory Gardens Theatre from September 16 to October 18, 1998, with Vladimir and Estragon played by Marc Vann and Brad Armacost, respectively. The interpretations of their characters emphasized Vladimir’s cynicism and made him seem unusually independent of Estragon, dissipating their verbal interplay. Thomas Joseph Carroll was Lucky. Also in Chicago, the Goodman Theatre offered a production of Waiting for Godot that was directed by Michael Maggio and ran from January 18 to February 20, 1999. It starred two veteran musical performers, Ross Lehman as Estragon and Andre De Shields as Vladimir, though Lehman’s performance emphasized a certain clownishness while De Shields was more poetic; they also wore fedoras rather than the traditional bowler hats. Lazaro Perez delivered Lucky’s speech in fragments while running frantically around the stage; Tim Edward Rhoze’s Pozzo towered over Lucky and sometimes frightened Estragon. The set, designed by Riccardo Hernandez, featured a bright yellow road, and lighting designer Donald Holder had the sky gradually change colors from light blue to purple, orange, pink, red, and yellow before returning to light blue and purple by the end of act 2. The first Australian performance of the French text of Godot was directed by Colin Duckworth in October 2001 at the Melbourne French Theatre. According to his account of the production in The Beckett Circle: Newsletter of the Samuel Beckett Society (25:1 [Spring 2002]: 13–14), Duckworth had originally “intended to do a bilingual production, using both of Beckett’s texts” (i.e., French and English); the production was approved by Edward Beckett and by Peter Murphy of Curtis Brown, but was rejected by Irène Lindon, who, in what Duckworth describes as “a stinging rebuke,” called the idea of it “néfaste” (“disastrous”). The dramatic basis of his bilingual production was explained as follows: Didi and Gogo are of our world, very solidly human. But Pozzo, Lucky and the Boy come from another level of existence, from a strange and foreign world. It is thus natural that they should express themselves in another lan-

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guage, which the English Didi and Gogo understand anyway (“Que voulezvous?”). (13)

Duckworth also claims that “around 1980 I had mentioned a bilingual production to Beckett, and he replied: ‘That would be very interesting.’ Unfortunately, I had no proof that the conversation took place” (13). The play was presented with English subtitles. In January 2003, 50 years to the day after the first performance of En attendant Godot in Paris, the production of Waiting for Godot with “exclusive world rights secured from Beckett’s heirs” was presented by the Company B Belvoir in Sydney, Australia, coinciding with The Samuel Beckett Symposium: After Beckett/d’après Beckett. It soon became the subject of considerable controversy over the degree to which the Beckett estate can and should control theatrical productions of the play. Directed by Neil Armfield, the production included much unauthorized music, both live and recorded. On the Sunday prior to the opening of the conference, Edward Beckett (the playwright’s nephew and literary executor) refused to join the cast for a postproduction photograph and “refused to cooperate unless the theatre promised to remove all the extraneous music it had ‘illegally’ put in” (Eric Prince, Review: “A Tempest in a Billycan: Godot and Endgame in Sydney,” Journal of Beckett Studies 11.2 [Spring 2002]: 100). Then, according to Armfield’s account that was printed in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian (10 January 2003), “‘He [Edward Beckett] told me that our production was in breach of its contract and that he would have it shut down if the music wasn’t removed by the next performance’” (qtd. in Prince 100). Furthermore, Beckett claimed (according to Armfield) that “if I allow this to proceed here it will be carte blanche—we will lose control of this play across the world. Directors will be able to do what they like” (qtd. in Prince 100); he threatened legal action if there was no compliance. The production listed a composer, sound designer, and musician in its program. The latter, Prince reports, was perched on a mezzanine or small balcony to one side of the playing space, overlooking and accompanying the action of the play at certain specified moments (rather like a piano player of old filling in the silences of the first silent movies). There was nothing subtle about the musician or his drum kit, percussion, and upright harmonium, with his score (or fake notes) on sheets of paper liberally plastered about the harmonium. (101)

Recorded sounds, including “a digitalized wind or whine effect, a distorted industrial burr that played on the nervous system” (Prince 102), were also introduced. Vladimir and Estragon were played by John Gaden

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and Max Cullen, respectively, with the latter in what Prince describes as “clown face make-up with heavily lined brows” (102). As Lucky, Steve Le Marquand had been directed to dance and otherwise move during the tirade, which was accompanied by drumbeats; Pozzo was played by Bodgan Koca. As early as March 2002, Armfield had made clear his intentions regarding the play; he was quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald saying that Waiting for Godot “sort of has to be rescued from the awe most people have for it. There’s always been a bit of fear there too, a sense of the audience having to stifle yawns” (Sharon Verghis, “Wait Is Over for Beckett Festival,” 22 March 2002). On the final day of the Beckett symposium, Armfield said the following to those attending the conference: In coming here with its narrow prescription, its dead controlling hand, its list of “not alloweds,” the Beckett estate seems to be the enemy of art. If there is something to hope for in this watershed fiftieth anniversary of the play that broke the rules, it is that Edward Beckett gives his uncle’s work back to artists to work with. After all, if he doesn’t let it go, he’s consigning it to a slow death by a thousand hacks. (qtd. in Prince 98)

The estate, however, undoubtedly seeks to protect the play from “death” (or at least serious mutilation) when in the hands of “hacks.” Six weeks earlier, Samuel French Inc., which licenses American productions of the play on behalf of the Beckett estate, closed the production of Waiting for Godot that was mounted by the People’s Branch Theatre in Nashville, Tennessee; its only performance was on November 14, 2002. Again, the cause of action was that the production deviated from the script—particularly by casting women in the roles of Vladimir and Estragon, although music had also been added. The play was directed by Brian Niece, with original music (and vocals) by Stephanie Niece, accompanied by a harpist. Vladimir (Jenny Littleton) and Estragon (Mary Bailey) were costumed as circus clowns, wearing male attire but with red circles on their cheeks, heavily lined eyebrows, and lipstick, giving them a decidedly androgynous appearance. The rest of the cast consisted of Jonathan Root (Lucky), Matt Chiorini (Pozzo), and David Wilkerson (identified on the program as “Child”). On designer Franne Lee’s set, the tree was represented by a large white cube on which various characters perched at times; narrow, white tubular branches protruded from the cube, and the leaves were white scarves. “It’s so ridiculous,” Lee remarked after the shutdown, adding that “They didn’t play women, I didn’t dress them like women. They just happened to be women playing men’s roles” (qtd. in Liz Murray Garrigan, “A Face in the Crowd,” Nashville Scene, 28 November–

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4 December 2002). The production had been intended to run through November 22, 2002. In January 2004, S. Fischer Verlag, the German publisher of Beckett’s plays, shut down a planned production of Waiting for Godot at a theater in Wilhelmshaven, Lower Saxony; another, near Frankfurt, had been closed down in December 2003. In each instance, the issue was once again the casting of women. The production in Lower Saxony was terminated 10 days before its opening, after six weeks of rehearsal. Director Philip Kochheim, who is also the director of the Landesbuhne Niedersachsen Nord, had “turned two characters, Lucky and Estragon, into female parts alongside male characters, Vladimir and Pozzo, in a tense, sexually charged interpretation of the drama,” according to a news account attributed to Kate Connolly, “Actresses still have 55 years to wait for Godot,” the Daily Telegraph (January 2004, reprinted at www.landesbuhne-nord.de/ service/pressestimmen.html). Following cancellation of the production, the same article noted, Kochheim and the cast “plan[ned] a reading of the play, on condition that ‘no movement’ [was] involved.” As reprinted in a news release from backstage.com (“German ‘Godot’ a No Go,” 6 February 2004), “the standard rider for all Beckett productions reads as follows: ‘There shall be no additions, omissions, changes in the sex of the characters as specified in the text, or alterations of any kind of nature in the manuscript or presentation of the Play.’” Yet in an interview reported in the same news release, Georges Borchardt, the New York-based literary agent who represents the interests of the Beckett estate,…[told] Back Stage that it’s all a matter of “what the playwright wanted.” He stressed that while it’s “not necessarily the belief” of the estate that actresses could never play Vladimir and Estragon, confusion would arise “because the actor or actress will always be perceived as being whatever sex he or she is” and “because the audience sees the program.”

Such controversies, arising out of the conflict between the rights of the copyright holders and the creative impulses (and rights) of theater practitioners, seem unlikely to end anytime soon. Many practical and theoretical questions arise, though the issues involved may be ultimately as unresolvable as the themes of Waiting for Godot itself: • At what point is a Beckett play no longer recognizably a Beckett play?

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• If Waiting for Godot is dependent on silence as a key part of its imagery and idea content, is it still Waiting for Godot if it is accompanied by more or less constant music throughout? • What, precisely, do theatergoers who buy a ticket to see Waiting for Godot have a right to expect, particularly if it is their first exposure to the play? What if, for example, midway through the second act, Godot (or somebody) does arrive—a cowled, deathlike figure who silently and solemnly wanders across the stage strewing tiny colored plastic crucifixes? (This was, in fact, done in a student production—probably unauthorized—that I saw at a community college in 1999. The director later explained to me that the interlude had been “performance art”—but on the way to the parking lot afterward, several members of the audience were overheard saying they thought Godot had arrived, though they were unsure what his strange actions meant. So, for that matter, was I). • To what extent can or should authors or their estates be able to control productions of their plays? • What about the changes that Beckett made in the play when he himself directed it? • Does the author as director have privileges that other directors do not? • Should every production of Waiting for Godot be almost a replica of every other? Would that be desirable, even if it were possible? If not, which variations are allowable and which are not? Who decides?

There are no easy answers to these questions, and their contestation seems likely to continue for quite a long time. The issues are, in fact, ages old: Prince Hamlet of Denmark, himself a playwright, expressed exactly the same concerns about how his works should be performed, as he remonstrated the Player King in act 2, scene 2. Under current international copyright law, Waiting for Godot remains under the protection of the Beckett estate for 70 years after the death of the author—more precisely, until the year 2059.

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BIOGRAPHIES There are at present four major biographies of Samuel Beckett. The authorized biography, which is also by far the most detailed, is James Knowlson’s Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996). Founder of the Samuel Beckett Archive (at the University of Reading, in England), author or editor of 10 previous books on Beckett’s works, and a friend of Beckett’s for over twenty years, Knowlson conducted over one hundred interviews for the volume, in addition to five months of weekly interviews with Beckett himself late in his life. He received the cooperation of numerous members of Beckett’s family and gained access to dozens of archival collections that had not previously been available to scholars. The biography also draws on Beckett’s student notes; his notes on his readings during the 1930s in philosophy, literature, and psychology; a diary kept during his visit to Germany in 1936 and 1937; his appointment books from 1964 to 1986; and materials related to his work with the French resistance during World War II. Despite Beckett’s long-held insistence on a separation between his life and work, Knowlson argues that crucial images from Beckett’s childhood in Ireland recur throughout his texts, and Beckett conceded to him that they were indeed “obsessional” (20) despite his aversion to naturalism and his attempts to escape direct depictions of life in his increasingly oblique, self-contained, and self-referential later works. A particular strength of Knowlson’s biography is its exploration of Beckett’s extensive knowledge of music and art,

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to which specific intertextual allusions—including particular works from such old masters as Dürer, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, and Giorgione—are made throughout his works but especially in his plays. While stressing the radically innovative nature of Beckett’s writings, Knowlson thus also establishes it within not only the philosophical and literary traditions (a subject that has been seemingly endlessly explored by countless scholars and critics) but also within a quite surprising artistic continuum. Among the paintings that directly influenced the iconography of Waiting for Godot, for example, are Kaspar David Friedrich’s Zwei Männer betrachten den Mond (Two Men Observing the Moon) and/or his Mann und Frau den Mond betrachten (Man and Woman Observing the Moon), and Jack B. Yeats’s The Two Travellers of 1942 and his Men of the Plain; furthermore, the scene of Lucky leading the blind Pozzo is linked to Pieter Breugel the Elder’s The Blind Leading the Blind, and the scene of the four characters on the ground evokes Brueghel’s The Land of Cockaigne; the image of Pozzo being lifted from the ground parallels Giovanni Bellini’s The Dead Christ with Angels or a work on the same theme by Giulio Procaccini. Meticulously detailed and thoroughly researched, Damned to Fame is indispensable to an understanding of Beckett’s works and is one of the foremost literary biographies of the twentieth century. The first biography of Beckett was Deirdre Bair’s Samuel Beckett: A Biography (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978), which was begun in 1971 when Bair was “a doctoral candidate in search of a dissertation topic” who wrote to Beckett asking to write his biography and was told in reply that he “would neither help nor hinder” her efforts (xi). She also gained access to much valuable correspondence between Beckett and Thomas MacGreevey. Although her research included over three hundred interviews and correspondence with many others, Bair acknowledges that “for every person I interviewed, there were at least two or three who were inaccessible to me…[and whose] statements must be gathered” (xiii). The resulting volume brought the contours of the notoriously reclusive author to the public for the first time, but many of his friends reacted negatively to its characterization of him, with its emphasis on physical maladies and neuroses. More importantly, a number of its details were inaccurate (most notably its account of how, when, and where Beckett first met his wife), and an ongoing list of factual corrections was a semiregular feature of The Beckett Circle, the newsletter of the Samuel Beckett Society, during the 1980s. For more detailed discussion of it, see the following: Richard Ellmann, “The Life of Sim Botchit,” The New York Review of Books (15 June 1978), 3–8, rpt. in Ellmann, a long the riverrun: Selected Essays (New York: Knopf, 1989), 229–238; Martin Esslin, “Scandalising Samuel

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Beckett,” Encounter 52.3 (March 1979): 49–55, rpt. as “The Unnamable Pursued by the Unspeakable,” in Esslin, Mediations: Essays on Brecht, Beckett, and the Media (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980), 155–170; and John Calder’s review in the Journal of Beckett Studies 4 (Spring 1979): 74–79. A second edition of Bair’s book, with a new foreword and an unspecified number of corrections, was published in 1990, but it has now been superseded by Knowlson’s work and others. Lois Gordon’s The World of Samuel Beckett, 1906–1946 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale, 1996) “creates an entirely different profile” (3) than that in Bair’s biography, which, Gordon maintains, “focused on Beckett’s eccentricities” (2–3) and “suggest[ed] that Beckett had a disturbed childhood and [an] ongoing, guilt-ridden relationship with a domineering and highly neurotic mother that resulted in paralyzing schizoid behavior” (3). Gordon’s own contention is that his life “was neither damaged nor pathological,” and her argument is summarized in her introduction as follows: My basic assumption is that despite Beckett’s artistic images of debilitation and impotence—too often taken as projections of Beckett’s own mental state—the public record describes a man of courage and resilience. This volume proposes that Beckett was a gentle but heroic man with a reservoir of toughness and strength that enabled him to pursue both an altruistic bent and the need for personal and artistic fulfillment. I would venture to say that Beckett’s life…was inspiring. (3)

Reliant on already-published sources rather than original interviews or access to family documents, Gordon’s biography “collat[es] details from a wide assemblage of Beckett scholarship” (3) and emphasizes the context of historical events during his first four decades of life, regarding his art “as a product of and testament to his times,” particularly its religious and sociopolitical crises (5). Anthony Cronin’s Samuel Beckett: The Last Modernist (New York: HarperCollins, 1997) is particularly strong in its emphasis on the Dublin literary and artistic milieu and the specifically Irish context of Beckett’s works. As a longtime friend of Beckett and many of his associates, Cronin offers a compatriot’s perspective on Beckett’s life and includes many anecdotes that are otherwise unavailable. The biography is also stylishly written and often quite witty, though it is less scholarly (and less extensively annotated) than Knowlson’s work. John P. Harrington’s The Irish Beckett (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1991) provides a useful complement to Cronin’s biography.

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For those seeking a more concise biography, Enoch Brater’s 144-page why beckett (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1989) may suffice. Its particular strength is its collection of 122 black-and-white photographs, including scenes from many of the major stage productions of his plays, and Brater is especially effective in linking Beckett’s fiction to his works written for performance. This book was republished in a revised and updated edition under the title The Essential Samuel Beckett: An Illustrated Biography (London: Thames and Hudson, 2003; New York: Norton, 2003). Eoin O’Brien’s The Beckett Country: Samuel Beckett’s Ireland (Dublin: The Black Cat Press, in association with Faber and Faber, 1986, and in New York in association with Riverrun Press) is an invaluable companion to any of the biographies listed above, for it offers an exhaustive photographic record of specific locales in Dublin and the surrounding countryside that figure in Beckett’s work. Prepared with Beckett’s cooperation, the book also includes family and archival photographs as well as reproductions of paintings that are relevant to Beckett’s writings; its superb black-and-white topographic photographs are by David H. Davison. Extensive quotations from Beckett’s works are woven into O’Brien’s commentary and are often placed exactly alongside the illustration that accompanies them. Its final chapter describes Beckett’s postwar years in Saint-Lô, France, so its biographical coverage coincides with that in Gordon, cited previously. LETTERS, INTERVIEWS, AND RELATED BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS The forthcoming multivolume edition of Samuel Beckett’s letters is currently being edited by Martha Fehsenfeld and associate editor Lois More Overbeck. However, Beckett’s extensive correspondence with the American director Alan Schneider has been separately published as No Author Better Served, edited by Maurice Harmon (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard, 1998). As a record of their working relationship between December 1955 and Schneider’s accidental death in 1984, these five hundred letters provide an especially revealing means of understanding both Beckett’s philosophy and his views on stagecraft. Since Schneider never asked questions dealing with the literary interpretation of the texts but focused, often in minute detail, on the way in which Beckett wanted specific lines and even individual words to be delivered, this book is an indispensable resource for actors and directors as well as literary scholars. Pozzo, for example, is described by Beckett as

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a hypomaniac and the only way to play him is to play him mad…. Pozzo’s sudden changes of tone, mood, behaviour, etc., may I suppose be related to what is going on about him, but their source is in the dark of his own inner upheavals and confusions…. Played in any other way Pozzo is just dead, artificial and tedious. (6)

In accordance with stipulations of the Beckett estate, letters pertaining only to his works and his working process have been published; materials classified as personal have been omitted, but assessments of other playwrights (including Harold Pinter, Edward Albee, and Jean Genet) are included. Publication of correspondence between Beckett and Barney Rosset, the founder of Grove Press, is forthcoming from Faber and Faber (London) under the title Barney and Sam: Samuel Beckett’s Letters to His American Publisher, Barney Rosset, and to Grove Press, edited, annotated, and with an introductory essay by S. E. Gontarski. Eight of these letters, written between June 1953 and October 1954 concerning the publication of Waiting for Godot, were published in the “Grove Press Number” of The Review of Contemporary Fiction 10.3 (Fall 1990): 64–71. Beckett in the Theatre: The Author as Practical Playwright and Director; Volume 1: From Waiting for Godot to Krapp’s Last Tape, by Dougald McMillan and Martha Fehsenfeld (London: John Calder, 1988), offers an especially important compilation of Beckett’s written comments on his plays as well as recollections of his remarks to various directors, actors, designers, translators, and other theater professionals. “Th[e] evolution of the plays from the original concept to more and more refined forms worked out in performance is the subject of this book,” and Beckett’s statements are presented “as free from extraneous commentary as possible” and without narrative linkage for continuity, although each item is followed by full documentation (11). There are four pages of general statements on theater (13–16) and two chapters on Waiting for Godot: the first of these (47–86) deals with the play’s origins, sources (primarily Geulincx and St. Augustine), individual characters, Beckett’s prompt script, and various productions (including eight photographs and two sketches); the following chapter, entitled “Beckett’s Godot” (87–161), is primarily based on Beckett’s Regiebuch (Director’s Notebook) for the 1975 Schiller-Theater production as well as the rehearsal diary of his assistant, Walter Asmus. Thirteen pages of Beckett’s notes and diagrams are reproduced herein, and there is a black-and-white photograph of Kaspar David Friedrich’s painting Two Men Observing the Moon (120). Throughout his contact with the various productions with which he worked, as well as during his time as a director of the Schiller-Theater

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production of 1975, Beckett made copious notes and numerous revisions to the text as it was originally published. Indeed, as James Knowlson notes in his “General Editor’s Introduction” to The Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett, Volume One: Waiting for Godot, with a Revised Text (New York: Grove Press, 1993), “some of the stage directions or…whole sections of the text have never been played as printed in the original edition….Some of the cuts in the 1975…production in German…had already been made, as an annotated script shows, over twenty years earlier in the French world première” of the play (v). Such revisions were not incorporated into the published text(s) of the play, however, until, “with Beckett’s full agreement,” the revised version, edited by Dougald McMillan and James Knowlson, was published, establishing all of the changes that he made and presenting a new version “as close as possible to how Beckett wanted them to be” (v). Often-surprising changes are evident from the very opening of the play: for example, Vladimir and Estragon are onstage together from the beginning, emphasizing the pair’s inseparability, rather than having Estragon struggling alone with his boot until Vladimir enters. The textual notes accompanying the revised text indicate what Beckett deleted, added, or revised; stage blocking and movements are so precisely recorded from the notebooks that, as Knowlson notes, “the word ‘choreography’ can quite properly be applied to a meticulously planned direction” (vi). The revised text occupies pages 9–85 of this volume; the extensive textual notes, line by line and sometimes word by word, are found on pages 87–171 and are indispensable for anyone interested in production history or textual scholarship. Part II of the book presents facsimiles of Beckett’s Production Notebook for Warten auf Godot at the Schiller-Theater in 1975, with transcriptions and translations on successive pages (174–395); editorial notes for these notebooks occupy pages 397–422. A list of cuts and changes in the Schiller-Theater annotated copies and production text follows (423–465), and there is a bibliography listing the manuscripts of the play as well as annotated copies that Beckett consulted (467–468), recordings, articles and interviews on Beckett as a director, and other secondary sources (469–472). A list of principal productions to 1989 is also provided, including cast lists (xxvii–xxxi). In some cases, however— particularly Alan Schneider’s 1971 production at the Sheridan Square Playhouse in New York and the Schiller-Theater production itself—the cast lists are not the original casts but instead those after substitutions had been made for various reasons; they are not identified as such. Interviews with a number of distinguished directors of Beckett’s works are to be found in Directing Beckett, by Lois Oppenheim (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1994); those whose credits include Wait-

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ing for Godot are Walter Asmus (40–47), Herbert Blau (48–65), Jan Jönson (92–100), Antoni Libera (101–123), and Joseph Chaikin (124–130). Although the book’s essays deal primarily with Beckett’s later plays, Ilan Ronen’s “Waiting for Godot as Political Theatre” (239–249) discusses the play as produced on the Arabic stage at the Haifa (Israel) Municipal Theatre in 1984. Appendix 2 of the book is a previously unpublished interview from 1975 between Roger Blin and Joan Stevens (301–314). Herbert Blau’s Sails of the Herring Fleet: Essays on Beckett (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000) presents 12 of the author’s essays and interviews from 1957 through 1998, introduced with a new preface by the author, who was Beckett’s close friend and the director of the best-known, least-seen production of Waiting for Godot, The Actors Workshop of San Francisco version in San Quentin Prison. The collection begins with Blau’s now-classic program note (simply titled “Who is Godot?” [21–23]) from that production and includes two interviews: “On Directing Beckett” (56–76) and “Remembering Beckett” (142–166). Mel Gussow’s Conversations with and about Beckett (New York: Grove Press, 1996) reprints nine of his interview-based articles from the New York Times from June 24, 1978 (“There was the light. Then it became its own darkness”) through March 11, 1989 (“I’m the Last”) as well as his obituary (67–80). The section entitled “Conversations about Beckett” includes similar articles based on interviews with actress Billie Whitelaw, directors Mike Nichols and Deborah Warner, former head of Lincoln Center Martin Segal, and nephew Edward Beckett. The book’s prelude includes actor Bert Lahr’s reminiscences about the American premiere of Godot (17–19) and actor Jack MacGowran’s intriguing claim—unverified elsewhere— that “near the Martello Tower [in Dublin] is a house with a woman named Mrs. Pozzo. She has a serving maid named Lucky” (20–28). The book also includes 13 reviews and essays, primarily devoted to Beckett’s later works (139–184). Several related biographies and biography-based studies also contain much valuable information about early productions of Waiting for Godot. Odette Aslan’s Roger Blin and Twentieth-Century Playwrights, translated by Ruby Cohn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) is a detailed study of the director of the first production of Godot and his revival of the play at the Comédie-Française in 1978; Blin’s production design sketch and his charts of characters’ movements also accompany the analysis. Aslan’s chapter on Godot is found on pages 23–43. John Lahr’s Notes on a Cowardly Lion: The Biography of Bert Lahr (New York: Knopf, 1969; rpt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000) offers a lengthy description of the American premieres of Godot in 1956,

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in which Bert Lahr played Estragon (pages 253–282); it is accompanied by three production photographs. An excerpt from this chapter, entitled “The Fall and Rise of Beckett’s Bum: Bert Lahr in Godot,” appeared in Evergreen Review in 1969 and has been reprinted in the Evergreen Review Reader 1967–1973, edited by Barney Rosset (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1998), 215–225. Peter Bull, who played Pozzo in the first English production of Godot, wrote several accounts of his experience in the play, the longest of which appears in his autobiography, I Know the Face, But…(London: Peter Davies, 1959), 166–191. Although Bull was not an admirer of the play, he provides many humorous details about the original London production that are not available elsewhere, and he provides much detail about its subsequent tour through other English cities and the audiences’ reactions to it. Bull’s first account of the production was published as “Waiting for God Knows What” (Plays and Players, May 1956; rpt. in The Best of Plays and Players, Vol. 1: 1953–1968, ed. Peter Roberts [London: Methuen, 1988], 58–60), and an excerpt from the autobiography appears in the Casebook on Waiting for Godot, edited by Ruby Cohn (New York: Grove Press, 1967), 39–43. Alan Schneider’s Entrances: An American Director’s Journey (New York: Viking, 1986) contains a chapter-length account of the first American production of Waiting for Godot, which he directed. Titled “Waiting for Beckett, 1955–1956” (221–239), it recounts the nearly anarchic rehearsal process: Bert Lahr, who played Estragon, was determined to be a vaudevillian “top banana,” wanted Lucky’s tirade excised from the text entirely, and improvised endlessly to get more laughs; as Pozzo, radio actor Jack Smart found his stage business with props nearly impossible to master; as Lucky, Charles Weidman, who was “a fine dancer and a great choreographer who had never acted before,” found it nearly impossible to remember his lines (226–227). At times, Schneider’s account is nearly as farcical as Michael Frayn’s play Noises Off (which is, of course, fiction) and is especially interesting when read in conjunction with John Lahr’s account, cited above. Schneider also records important remarks that Beckett made during their first meeting in Paris to discuss the play: According to him, Godot had “no meaning” and “no symbolism.” There was no “general point of view involved,” but it was certainly “not existentialist.” Nothing in it meant anything other than what it was on the surface. “It’s just about two people who are like that.” That was all he would say. (224)

He also describes attending the original London production in Beckett’s company several times, noting the playwright’s dissatisfaction with the performances and staging of it as well.

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Jordan R. Young’s The Beckett Actor: Jack MacGowran, Beginning to End (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Moonstone Press, 1987) is a biography of the actor who was in many ways the foremost interpreter of Beckett’s works and a close friend of the playwright. In addition to details about and photographs from various productions of Waiting for Godot, Young’s book features many photographs of MacGowran in other Beckettian roles, including his much-acclaimed one-man shows End of Day (1962) and Beginning to End (1965), which presented selections from Beckett’s prose and plays. Linda Ben-Zvi’s Drawing on Beckett: Portraits, Performances, and Cultural Contexts (Tel Aviv: Assaph Books, 2003) includes a variety of papers that were originally presented at the International Samuel Beckett Working Group of the International Federation of Theatre Research, of which Ben-Zvi is the convener. The book is divided into three parts: the first presents 24 sketches of Beckett by one of his friends, the Paris-based Israeli artist Avigdor Arikha; the second focuses on writers, artists, philosophers, and scientists who have influenced Beckett’s thought; and the third assesses his radio and television plays, performances of the stage plays, and the effects of his “media jumping.” The Grove Companion to Samuel Beckett: A Reader’s Guide to His Works, Life, and Thought, by C. J. Ackerley and S. E. Gontarski (New York: Grove Press, 2004), offers the only comprehensive reference guide to the concepts, characters, and biographical details mentioned by and related to Beckett. Alphabetically organized and thoroughly cross-referenced, it is a trove of information for all students and scholars, compiled by two of the world’s foremost Beckett scholars. It will be simply indispensable for future Beckett studies and is virtually unsurpassable, a landmark achievement in literary scholarship. COLLECTIONS OF ESSAYS AND REVIEWS Fortunately, many of the crucial early reviews and critical articles on Waiting for Godot have been reproduced in readily accessible anthologies. Among the most useful of these is the Casebook on Waiting for Godot, edited by Ruby Cohn (cited previously), which is divided into sections entitled “Impact” (11–85) and “Interpretation” (89–187); it also includes a five-page bibliography (188–192). Reviews of the Paris 1953 production by Sylvain Zegel, Jean Anouilh, Jacques Audiberti, Armand Salacrou, and Alain Robbe-Grillet appear here in translation, along with John Fletcher’s profile of the French director, “Roger Blin at Work.” Harold Hobson’s influential review of the 1955 London production is also here, along with comments by Marya Mannes and Denis Johnston, as well as Peter Bull’s

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recollections of playing Pozzo. Alan Simpson, the director of the first Irish production, and Alan Schneider, the first American director, record their respective experiences with the play. Other selections include Eric Bentley’s “The Talent of Samuel Beckett” (59–66), Henry Hewes’s “Mankind in the Merdecluse”(67–69), Norman Mailer’s “A Public Notice on Waiting for Godot” from Advertisements for Myself (69–74), Alan Levy’s “The Long Wait for Godot” (74–78), Martin Esslin’s “Godot at San Quentin” from The Theatre of the Absurd (83–85), and a dialogue on the play first published in Tulane Drama Review in 1965 featuring Richard Schechner, Gil Moses, John O’Neal, Murray Levy, and Denise Nicholas (79–82). The section “Interpretation” includes the following: Colin Duckworth’s “The Making of Godot” (89–100), Alfonso Sastro’s “Seven Notes on Waiting for Godot” (101–107), Hugh Kenner’s “Life in the Box” (107–113), Herbert Blau’s “Notes from the Underground” (113–121), Darko Suvin’s “Preparing for Godot—Or The Purgatory of Individualism” (121–132), G. S. Fraser’s “Waiting for Godot” (133–137), Robert Champigny’s “Waiting for Godot: Myth, Words, Wait” (137–144), Lawrence E. Harvey’s “Art and the Existential in Waiting for Godot” (144–154), Sue-Ellen Case’s “Image and Godot” (155–159), John J. Sheedy’s “The Net” (159–166), Ludovic Janvier’s “Cyclical Dramaturgy” (166–171), Geneviève Serreau’s “Beckett’s Clowns” (171–175), and Richard Schechner’s “There’s Lots of Time in Godot” (175–187). In 1987, 20 years after the publication of the Grove Press Casebook, Ruby Cohn edited a second casebook on Waiting for Godot, published by Macmillan as part of a series. This volume, entitled Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot: A Casebook, is divided into three parts: “The Stage” (23–78) contains 20 brief reviews and excerpted accounts of various productions from 1953 through 1987 by a number of prominent Beckett scholars, directors, and critics; “The Study” (81–167) offers 17 concise scholarly articles on important aspects of the play, including such important studies of the text as Colin Duckworth’s “Godot—Genesis and Composition” (81–86) and Hersh Zeifman’s “The Alterable Whey of Words—The Play’s Texts” (86–95) as well as considerations of Beckett’s bilingualism, tragedy and comedy in relation to the play, and essays linking it to works by Ionesco and Brecht as well as Noh drama; the third part, “At Large” (171–196), includes Sean O’Casey’s 1956 brief dismissive review in Encore magazine, titled “Not Waiting for Godot,” in which he deemed it a “rotting and remarkable play” (181), alongside essays by Martin Esslin (171–175) and Kay Boyle (176–181) praising its universality. A charted chronology of Beckett’s works, divided by genre, is also included (197–200), as is a brief

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bibliography (201–202); Cohn’s introduction surveys “The Man,” “The Work,” and “Waiting for Godot.” John Elsom’s Post-War British Theatre Criticism (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981) reprints—though sometimes as excerpts—the following reviews of the 1955 London production of Waiting for Godot (64–70): Milton Shulman’s from the Evening Standard (4 August 1955), Harold Hobson’s from the Sunday Times (7 August 1955), Ronald Barker’s from Plays and Players (September 1955), an anonymous mention in the Times (London) (4 August 1955), Philip Hope-Wallace’s from the Guardian (Manchester) (5 August 1955), and Kenneth Tynan’s enormously influential one in the Observer (7 August 1955), in which he declared that Godot “forced me to re-examine the rules that have hitherto governed the drama; and having done so, to pronounce them not elastic enough” (70). Samuel Beckett: The Critical Heritage, edited by Lawrence Graver and Raymond Federman (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), reprints key reviews of all of Beckett’s works in order of their publication through 1977. Those on Waiting for Godot (88–115) are Sylvain Zegel in Libération (7 January 1953), Jacques Lemarchand in Le Figaro Littéraire (17 January 1953), Jean Anouilh in Arts-Spectacles (27 February–5 March 1953), Harold Hobson in the Sunday Times (7 August 1955), Kenneth Tynan in the Observer (7 August 1955), G. S. Fraser in the Times Literary Supplement (10 February 1956), Eric Bentley in The New Republic (14 May 1956), C. B. in the San Quentin News (28 November 1957), and Pierre Marcabru in Arts-Spectacles (10–16 May 1961). The book also includes a detailed chronology of Beckett’s life and works through 1977 (xiii–xx). Samuel Beckett: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Martin Esslin (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1965), reprints a number of important early essays, several of which are directly pertinent to Waiting for Godot. In addition to Esslin’s useful introduction (1–15), the essays include “Three Dialogues” between Beckett and Georges Duthuit (16–22), Maurice Nadeau’s “Samuel Beckett: Humour and the Void” (33–36), A. J. Leventhal’s “The Beckett Hero” (37–51), Hugh Kenner’s “The Cartesian Centaur” (52–61), Jean-Jacques Mayoux’s “Samuel Beckett and Universal Parody” (77–91), Alain Robbe-Grillet’s “Samuel Beckett, or ‘Presence’ in the Theatre” (108–116), Eva Metman’s “Reflections on Samuel Beckett’s Plays” (117–139), Günter Anders’s “Being without Time: Beckett’s Play Waiting for Godot” (140–151), Ross Chambers’s “Beckett’s Brinkmanship” (152–168), and Ruby Cohn’s “Philosophical Fragments in the Works of Samuel Beckett” (169–177). The book also includes a chronology through 1964 and a two-page bibliography.

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On Beckett: Essays and Criticism, edited by S. E. Gontarski (New York: Grove Press, 1986), includes five key articles on Waiting for Godot: “[actor Jack] MacGowran on Beckett,” an interview by Richard Toscan (213– 225); “[director Roger] Blin on Beckett,” an interview by Tom Bishop (226–235); Alan Schneider, “Working with Beckett” (236–254); Herbert Blau’s “Notes from Underground: Waiting for Godot and Endgame” (255– 279); Walter Asmus’s “Beckett Directs Godot” (280–290). In Myth and Ritual in the Plays of Samuel Beckett (Rutherford, N.J.: Associated University Presses, 1987), editor Katherine H. Burkman argues that even though in Beckett’s plays “one may look in vain for rituals that bring renewal and myths that bespeak a meaningful redemption from th[e] void[,]…Beckett’s dramatic world is filled with ritual behavior and is suffused with fragments of old myths,” primarily in the form of habits that, “as [they] fail to deaden, [take] on a ritual aspect” (13). Claudia Clausius’s “Bad Habits While Waiting for Godot: The Demythification of Ritual” (124–143) is the book’s only full-length analysis of Waiting for Godot. Clausius contends that “influenced by Charles Chaplin’s parody of ritual in his comic films, Beckett…is concerned with demythification, with exposing myths such as religion, language, love, logic, philosophy, science—in other words, ritualized thought and consciousness” (124). Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, edited by Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea House, 1987), reprints a selection of critical essays on the play but is particularly notable for Bloom’s introduction, which “sets the play in the context of Beckett’s literary cosmos, Gnostic and Schopenhauerian” (1); he also considers Beckett to be as much the literary descendant of Jonathan Swift as he is of James Joyce. In his remarks on gnosticism, Bloom contends that Godot “is the world ruled by the Archons, the kenoma, non-place of emptiness….Call this a natural rather than a revealed Gnosticism, in Beckett’s case, but Gnosticism it is nevertheless” (3). He also contends that for Beckett personally, “‘Godot’ is an emblem for ‘recognition’…[,] for his novels to be received and appreciated, within the canon” (7). The essays included in the volume are John Fletcher’s “Bailing Out the Silence” (11–22), Martin Esslin’s “The Search for the Self” (23–40), Ruby Cohn’s “Waiting” (41–52), Hugh Kenner’s “Waiting for Godot” (53–66), Richard Gilman’s “The Waiting Since” (67–78), Bert O. States’s “The Language of Myth” (79–94), Eric Gans’s “Beckett and the Problem of Modern Culture” (95–110), and Edith Kern’s “Beckett’s Modernity and Medieval Affinities” (111–118). The volume also includes a chronology and bibliography. The collection of essays titled simply Waiting for Godot and Endgame, edited by Steven Connor (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992), offers a number

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of essays of interest regarding the former play (with or without reference to the latter). These include Andrew K. Kennedy’s “Action and Theatricality in Waiting for Godot” (16–28), James L. Calderwood’s “Ways of Waiting in Waiting for Godot” (29–43), Jeffrey Nealon’s “Samuel Beckett and the Postmodern: Language Games, Play and Waiting for Godot” (44–54), Wolfgang Iser’s “Counter-sensical Comedy and Audience Response in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot” (55–70), Steven Connor’s “The Doubling of Presence in Waiting for Godot and Endgame” (128–140), Judith A. Roof’s “A Blink in the Mirror: Oedipus and Narcissus in Waiting for Godot and Endgame” (141–149), and Mary Bryden’s “Gender in Transition: Waiting for Godot and Endgame” (150–164). Critical Thought Series 4: Critical Essays on Samuel Beckett, edited by Lance St. John Butler (Aldershot, Hants, England: Scolar Press, 1993), reprints 86 reviews and essays (in their original formatting and type fonts) from throughout Beckett’s career. Those related to Waiting for Godot are J.-B. Jeener’s review of the 1953 production of En attendant Godot in Le Figaro (18); Gabriel Marcel’s review of the same in Nouvelles Littéraires (19); Kenneth Tynan’s review of the first English production in the Observer (20–21); Ronald Barker’s review of the same in Plays and Players (22–23); Patrick Kavanaugh’s “Some Reflections on Waiting for Godot” in the Irish Times in 1956 (27–28); Vivian Mercier’s “The Uneventful Event” in the same (29–30); other reviews from 1956 are Eric Bentley’s “The Talent of Samuel Beckett” in The New Republic (37–40), William Empson’s in the Times Literary Supplement (41), and Harold Clurman’s in The Nation (42–43). Ronald Gray’s “Waiting for Godot: A Christian Interpretation” from The Listener in 1957 (44–48) and Kenneth Tynan’s “A Philosophy of Despair” (49–50) are juxtaposed. An anonymous review from Theatre Arts in 1958 records the San Quentin Prison performance (67–68). Alan Schneider’s “Waiting for Beckett” from 1958 is included (69–83), as is Raymond Williams’s “Hope Deferred” from the New Statesman in 1961 (111–115). Wolfgang Iser’s “Samuel Beckett’s Dramatic Language,” which originally appeared in Modern Drama in 1966, focuses particular attention on Beckett’s stage directions in Waiting for Godot, arguing that they “achieve their special function when the coordination between expression and action is completely dissolved” (145–153). Robert F. Fleissner’s “‘Godotology’ Revisited: The Hidden Anagram for Gott/Tod” suggests that Godot’s name is derived from Nietzsche’s assertion that “God is dead”—in German “Gott ist tot” (276–277). David McCandliss’s “Beckett and Tillich: Courage and Existence in Waiting for Godot,” which appeared in Modern Drama in 1988, interprets the play in terms of the theologian’s book The Courage to Be, without alleging direct influence (344–353).

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The Cambridge Companion to Samuel Beckett, edited by John Pilling (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), contains several essays that are particularly insightful about Waiting for Godot. Michael Worton’s “Waiting for Godot and Endgame: Theatre as Text” (67–87) considers Beckett’s two distinct attitudes toward authorial control: although he often professed a resolute unwillingness to explicate his writings in any way, whether for actors or the general public (thus refusing to sanction any single interpretation), he consistently and at times obsessively sought to control performances and productions’ mise-en-scène. Worton also characterizes Beckett as a transitional figure between modernism (which emphasized self-reflection) and postmodernism (which relies on parody, pastiche, and fragmentation). In “Samuel Beckett as Director: The Art of Mastering Failure” (196–208), Anna McMullen also examines this “juxtaposition of meaning and pattern [that] is…a major concern of Beckett the author…and one whose realization in performance Beckett as director was able to supervise in precise detail” (199). The Critical Response to Samuel Beckett, edited by Cathleen Culotta Andonian (New York: Greenwood Press, 1998), a volume of their Critical Responses in Arts and Letters series, documents the critical response to Beckett from his earliest prose and poetry to the public’s reaction to his death in 1989. A selection of reviews and scholarly articles covering all of Beckett’s works is presented in chronological order, so that the reader can trace the changing reception of his works over time. A bibliography is also included. Laura Marvel’s Readings on Waiting for Godot (San Diego, Calif.: Greenhaven Press, 2001) is a volume of their Literary Companion Series, which is designed to offer a comprehensive but accessible means of literary research for young adults who seek background on great literary lives and works. According to the publisher’s Web site, the essays have been “expertly edited to meet the reading levels of young adults,” and the introduction to each essay “summarizes the contributing author’s themes and insights and provides a guide for locating main ideas. The addition of vocabulary aids also increases comprehension.” CRITICAL STUDIES The single best general introduction in English to Waiting for Godot is Colin Duckworth’s book-length study that precedes his edition of the French text, En attendant Godot (London: George G. Harrap & Co., 1966), xi–cxxxv. With a foreword by Harold Hobson, Duckworth’s analysis is divided into eight chapters, includes a brief bibliography through 1965,

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and also has a list of publishers of the authorized translations of the play into English, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Danish, Catalan, Portuguese, Finnish, Norwegian, Serbo-Croat, Dutch, and Swedish. The first chapter, “Samuel Beckett: A Man and His Mind,” provides a biographical overview and identifies two of his recurrent themes: questing and human suffering (xvii–xxv). Chapter 2, “What Are Beckett’s Works About?,” discusses his “distrust” of traditional literature, the search for the meaning of Self, and Cartesian dualism; it also links his works to those of Dante, Victor Hugo, and Blaise Pascal, as well as the artist Alberto Giacometti (xxvi– xliv). The third chapter, “Godot: Genesis and Composition,” includes a discussion of the “pseudocouple” in the then-unpublished Mercier and Camier, the manuscript, the set, and the theme of waiting (xlv–lxxv). Chapter 4, “Approaches to Godot,” discusses the play’s relationship to works by Dante and Franz Kafka, emphasizes that there is no single “correct” approach, and includes a brief Jungian analysis (lxxvi–lxxxii). The fifth chapter, “Godot: Structure and Style,” assesses the play’s patterns of repetition, its seeming inaction, its “circular” structure, its ironic counterpoints, and its comic and poetic devices (lxxxiii–xcv). Chapter 6, “Symbolism and Characterization,” includes discussion of symbol and allegory, the range of possible interpretations, the characters’ names, the ego and the id, existentialism and absurdity; there is also extensive discussion of Pozzo and Lucky, including the question, Is Pozzo James Joyce?—or is he Godot? (xcvi–cxii). The seventh chapter, “Godot: Constant or Variable?,” focuses on the character of Godot himself, relating him to God but also discussing him “as a concept” related to themes of time, infinity, identity, memory, and reality (cxiii–cxxiv). Chapter 8, “Conclusions,” includes considerations of, How could Godot end? and briefly discusses the importance of the individual reader/spectator response in the construction of meaning; the play is also discussed in terms of works by August Strindberg as well as “anti-theatre and socialist realism” (cxxv–cxxxi). Although all of the issues that Duckworth raises have been discussed and debated at great lengths elsewhere, and although subsequent decades have seen the development of “approaches” to the play that were unknown in 1966, his introduction to the play is remarkable for its conciseness, the breadth of its coverage, and its early and insightful identification of many of the key issues about the play. A Student’s Guide to the Plays of Samuel Beckett, by Beryl S. Fletcher, John Fletcher, Barry Smith, and Walter Bachem (London: Faber and Faber, 1978), offers extraordinarily detailed page-by-page annotations for all of Beckett’s plays through…but the clouds…(1976), plus preliminary sections on each play’s composition, reception, dramatis personae, decor,

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structure, language, and dramatic expression. The chapter on Waiting for Godot (38–70) is especially useful for new readers or first-time viewers of the play, and the book’s introduction provides an admirably concise overview of modernism, the theater of the absurd, and problems that are typically encountered in interpreting Beckett’s works. Without question, the book that did the most to establish Beckett’s international reputation and to define the movement with which he remains most identified was Martin Esslin’s The Theatre of the Absurd (New York: Vintage-Random, 1961), now in its third edition (New York: VintageRandom, 2004). At remarkably early stages of their careers, Esslin astutely discerned and explained in detail the thematic patterns and philosophical premises that united the then bafflingly disparate and oblique plays by such writers as Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Jean Genet, Harold Pinter, Edward Albee, Arthur Adamov, Fernando Arabal, Max Frisch, and Günter Grass. The book’s introduction, titled “The Absurdity of the Absurd,” and its sixth and seventh chapters (“The Tradition of the Absurd” and “The Significance of the Absurd,” respectively) are among the indispensable critical essays of the twentieth century, defining what Esslin designated in his preface as a “type of theatre that is by no means of concern only to a narrow circle of intellectuals…[but] may provide a new language, new ideas, new approaches, and a new, vitalized philosophy to transform the modes of thought and feeling of the public at large in the not too distant future” (xi–xii). Famously, Esslin begins the introduction with a description of the San Francisco Actors Workshop production of Waiting for Godot before an audience of convicts in the San Quentin prison, who, due to their particular circumstances, understood the play’s characters’ plight in ways that middle-class theatergoers seeking a good night out did not. The first chapter, “Samuel Beckett: The Search for the Self,” provides one of the earliest biographical overviews of the even-then reclusive author and asserts that his plays “spring from the deepest strata of the mind and probe the darkest wells of anxiety” (9). He also recorded that when Alan Schneider, who was to direct the first American production of Waiting for Godot, asked Beckett who or what was meant by Godot, he received the answer, “If I knew, I would have said so in the play.” This is a salutary warning to anyone who approaches Beckett’s plays with the intention of discovering the key to their understanding, of demonstrating in exact and definite terms what they mean…. Libraries have been filled with attempts to reduce the meaning of a play like Hamlet to a few short and simple lines, yet the play itself remains the clearest and most concise statement of its meaning and message, precisely because its uncertainties and irreducible ambiguities are an essential element of its total impact. (12)

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Critical examination therefore should focus, Esslin explained, “if not [on] the answers to [such] questions, at least [on defining] what the questions are that he is asking” (13). The complementary nature of the paired characters is usefully assessed, as is controversy over the etymology of the name Godot, including its possible link to Honoré de Balzac’s play Le Faiseur (also known as Mercadet), which contains a character named Godeau, who, though much talked about, never arrives (see Eric Bentley, What Is Theatre? [Boston: Beacon Press, 1956], 158). The problems with both Christian and non-Christian readings of the play are also usefully assessed, though Esslin concludes that “above all it is a poem on time, evanescence, and the mysteriousness of existence, the paradox of change and stability, necessity and absurdity” (27). Like the term “angry young men,” which was applied to a number of working-class novelists and playwrights from the 1950s and 1960s, the phrase “theater of the absurd” conjoined a number of disparate then-young writers whose differences now seem more intriguing than their similarities. Nevertheless, Esslin’s book remains one of the most important scholarly studies of the twentieth century, having provided legitimacy, intellectual respectability, and accessibility to what was in its time the seeming chaos of the dramatic and literary avant-garde. For Esslin’s assessment of the contribution of his book to Beckett studies 20 years after its first publication, see his essay “Beckett and the ‘Theater of the Absurd’” in Approaches to Waiting for Godot, edited by June Schlueter and Enoch Brater, cited in the section “Pedagogical Approaches,” later in this chapter. Ruby Cohn, widely acknowledged as the doyenne of Beckett criticism and scholarship, is the author of four books on his works in addition to being the editor of the previously cited casebooks. Her first book on his writings, Samuel Beckett: The Comic Gamut (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1962), establishes “the extraordinary erudition on which his comedy rests” (5) and relates his work to authors as diverse as François Rabelais, Jonathan Swift, Franz Kafka, Alfred Jarry, and James Joyce, although its “springboard” into understanding Beckett’s particular style of comedy is Henri Bergson’s Le Rire (1899); she also relates Beckett’s concept of tragicomedy to the definition in Sir Philip Sidney’s Defense of Poesie (written in 1579–1580). Individual chapters assess each of Beckett’s major works through Comment c’est (1961), and the discussion of Waiting for Godot (208–225) assesses it as “a ‘music-hall sketch of Cartesian man performed by Chaplinesque clowns’” (211) and describes its “uses [of] action to…undermine language” (208). Elegant, eloquent, and always lucid, Samuel Beckett: The Comic Gamut is indispensable to an understanding of his comic art. In Back to Beckett (Princeton, N.J.:

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Princeton University Press, 1973), Cohn discusses Beckett’s works further, again in chronological order, through Not I (1972). The section on Godot (127–139) begins with a personal reminiscence of having seen a performance of the original production of the play in Paris and notes that the character of Godot “has subsequently been explained as God, a diminutive god, Love, Death, Silence, Hope, DeGaulle, Pozzo, a Balzac character, a bicycle racer, Time Future, a Paris street for call-girls, [and] a distasteful image evoked by French words containing the root god… [but] Beckett’s play tells us plainly who Godot is—the promise that is always awaited and not fulfilled, the expectation that brings two men to the board night after night” (131–132). In Just Play: Beckett’s Theater (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980), Cohn deals with the 21 Beckett plays (including two mimes, three teleplays, four for radio, and one film) both as texts (in the section entitled “Through Views,” 17–139) and as enactments (in “Performance,” 187–279). Titled with phrases from Godot, the chapters of “Through Views” deal with Beckett’s use of place (17–33), time (34–57), “soliloquizers” (58–75), “fictionalizers” (76–95), and repetitions (96–139); the chapters of “Performance” include “Some Beckett Theatricians” (189–206), “Jumping Beckett’s Genres” (207–229), and “Beckett Directs” (230–279). Cohn’s A Beckett Canon (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001) provides commentary on Beckett’s works in chronological order, focusing particularly on the first versions of the texts rather than subsequent translations, including Beckett’s own. The discussion of Godot (176–183) includes a particularly valuable description of the original (unpublished) manuscript of En attendant Godot. Hugh Kenner, the polymathic elucidator of high modernism, has written three books on Samuel Beckett. The Stoic Comedians: Flaubert, Joyce, Beckett (Boston: Beacon Press, 1962; rpt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974) examines Beckett as a “Comedian of the Impasse” (67–107). Although this study focuses primarily on the prose works, for which the novels of Flaubert (“Comedian of the Enlightenment”) and Joyce (“Comedian of the Inventory”) provide surprising precedents, its concept of “stoic” comedy is crucial to an understanding of the humor in Waiting for Godot. Samuel Beckett: A Critical Study (New York: Grove Press, 1961; new edition, with a supplementary chapter, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968) was prepared with Beckett’s assistance and is “meant not to explain Samuel Beckett’s work but to help the reader think about it” (9). Specifically, Beckett suggested that overinterpretation, which appeared to trouble him more than erroneous interpretation, arose from two main assumptions: that the writer is necessarily presenting some experience which he has had, and that he neces-

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sarily writes in order to affirm some general truth (this knocks out most of the assumptions about Godot)…. It was clear from the drift of his talk that if Godot, for instance, really crosses the stage under a pseudonym…these events (to say the least) happen without the author’s knowledge. (10)

The book’s five chapters are “The Man in the Room” (13–77), “The Rational Domain” (79–115), “The Cartesian Centaur” (117–132), “Life in the Box” (133–165), and “Voices in the Dark” (167–207); the 1968 edition adds a “Progress Report, 1962–1965” (209–225). Although the book is primarily oriented toward the fiction rather than the plays, the fourth chapter usefully links Godot with the then-unpublished Mercier and Camier, and Kenner’s lucid discussion of the implications of post-Cartesian philosophy (particularly that of Arnold Geulincx, 1624–1699) is germane to all of Beckett’s works. Kenner’s A Reader’s Guide to Samuel Beckett (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973) offers succinct commentaries on all of Beckett’s works through Lessness (1970); its chapter on Waiting for Godot (23–38) links it to the films of Laurel and Hardy (particularly Way Out West) and emphasizes that “the printed text is the score for a performance, and is not meant in any final way for reading matter” (26). “After years of familiarity with [Beckett’s] work,” Kenner concludes, “I find no sign that it has ambitions to enunciate a philosophy of life” (38). Kenner is also the author of A Colder Eye: The Modern Irish Writers (New York: Knopf, 1983), a controversial, provocative, and idiosyncratic overview of twentieth-century Irish literature, with its final chapter (“The Terminator,” 329–342) focusing on Beckett. The book gained a certain notoriety for its characterization of “the Irish Fact, definable as anything they will tell you in Ireland, where you get told a great deal and had best assume a demeanor of wary appreciation” (15). Harold Bloom’s views on Beckett are set forth in chapter 22 of his book The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994), 493–514. Although he notes that Waiting for Godot “is haunted by the Protestant Bible” and “takes its models” from popular entertainment (music halls, vaudeville, mimes, circuses, and silent films), he contends that all of these ultimately have their origins in “farce, medieval and later” (500). He also comments on a quotation from P. B. Shelley that is spoken by Estragon when the moon rises at the end of the first act (“Pale for weariness…of climbing heaven and gazing on the likes of us”), which he further relates to the philosophy of Bishop Berkeley. Specifically, the Shelley quotation is said to parody “the Berkeleyan subjective consciousness, joyless and mutable, because no being is a worthy candidate for object constancy. ‘The likes of us’ are not worthy of the moon’s regard, so we do not achieve existence” (501). Bloom also examines Estragon’s

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“anxiety that Vladimir may abandon him” as well as his “suicidal mania” (501). He also considers the play’s relationship to Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s Life Is a Dream and links Vladimir and Estragon to Shakespeare’s fools, though he finds the pathos of Beckett’s characters “weirdly original” (502). Nevertheless, he claims that Beckett’s “masterpiece is undoubtedly Endgame” (503). The issue of the gnostic and Schopenhauerian argument in Beckett’s works, which he discusses in his introduction to his edited collection of essays titled Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (see above), is further elaborated here in relation to Endgame (513). A brief meditation on Beckett can also be found in Bloom’s Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds (New York: Warner Books, 2002), 219–224. Here Bloom omits Waiting for Godot from the list of Beckett’s “major works” (which consists of Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, How It Is, Endgame, and Krapp’s Last Tape) and contends that Beckett’s “authentic affinity is with Kafka, the rival master of the negative” (219). A more-or-less representative early Christian interpretation of Waiting for Godot can be found in Wylie Sypher’s Loss of Self in Modern Literature and Art (New York: Random House, 1962), which argues that in the play’s first act Pozzo “would be…the terrible Old-Testament God, the tyrant-divinity, and in the second act…a New Testament God, manifesting himself as injured, crucified, helpless” (157). Various other religious interpretations of the play are offered in Josephine Jacobsen and William Mueller’s The Testament of Samuel Beckett (New York: Hill and Wang, 1968). Such views are now of interest primarily in the history of the play’s (and its author’s) critical reception; however, their allegorical approach is now widely recognized as reductive of Beckett’s genius, the complexity of his work, and the sophistication of his theological and philosophical understanding. Hélène L. Baldwin’s Samuel Beckett’s Real Silence (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1981) focuses on religious language and mysticism throughout his works. Its seventh chapter, “Waiting on God: The Quest of Vladimir and Estragon” (107–124), maintains that “it appears that Godot is God” and argues that the play “is concerned with the fragmentation of Christendom and with the pathos of those faithful few who ‘kept their appointment’ in spite of their ignorance and apathy” (107). The tree is equated with the cross, and Vladimir’s name is said to allude to an eleventh-century Russian czar who converted to Christianity. Pozzo, meanwhile, “represents the Prince of this world, of whom Christ speaks” (117). The play’s title is said to be an allusion to Simone Weil’s book Waiting for God. Those who believe—or want to believe—that “the meaning” (singular) of Waiting for Godot can be found in (or reduced to)

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a six-line quotation from theologian Paul Tillich will find the secret passage here (124). The quotation comes from his chapter entitled “Waiting” in The Shaking of the Foundations (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948), 149–152, but neither Tillich nor Weil is believed to have been a significant influence on Beckett’s thought. A more nuanced study of the Christian aspects of Beckett’s writings can be found in Mary Bryden’s Samuel Beckett and the Idea of God (New York: St. Martin’s, 1998). She contends that the hypothesised God who emerges from Beckett’s texts is one who is both cursed for his perverse absence and cursed for his surveillant presence. He is by turns dismissed, satirised, or ignored, but he, and his tortured son, are never definitively discarded. If God is not apprehended in the here-and-now, there is nevertheless a perceived need, a potential opening, for a salvific function which a Deity could fulfil…. It cannot be said that Beckett’s people show much aptitude for religious faith as conventionally understood, but what they are never healed of is a faint hope/misgiving that, as Hamm puts it [in Endgame]: “We’re not beginning to…to…mean something?” (2)

Bryden’s third chapter, “Drama and Later Prose,” is divided into the following sections: “Uses of the Bible” (102–112), “Priests, Prayers, and Popular Piety” (112–121), and “Theology” (122–131). She corrects the factual error in Vladimir’s contention that two of the gospels do not mention the crucified thieves (110) and cites other biblical events that occur only in one account (e.g., the appearance of the angel Gabriel to Mary) but are not therefore disbelieved. Though the book’s overview of Beckett’s theological interests, the extent of his knowledge of religious images, and his use of Christian motifs is quite thorough, Bryden’s specific commentary on Waiting for Godot seems surprisingly sparse. In Samuel Beckett: The Language of Self (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1962; New York: Dutton, 1964), Frederick J. Hoffman devotes his final chapter to “Being and Waiting: The Question of Godot.” Analyzing the play as an existentialist comedy, he also considers it as “one of the greatest adaptations of the clown’s skill to the theatre,” focusing particularly on the use of “the lines and curves of stage motion” through repetition, the language itself, and pratfalls (138–144). He also notes that “no Beckett character is seriously interested in God as a metaphysical entity” and contends that throughout the play “the Christian beliefs are turned to secular metaphors” (146). In earlier chapters he places Beckett’s oeuvre within the context of works by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Franz Kafka. David L. Grossvogel’s The Blasphemers: The Theater of Brecht, Ionesco, Beckett, and Genet (New York: Cornell University Press, 1965; originally

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published as Four Playwrights and a Postscript in 1962) argues that the salient characteristic of Beckett’s drama is its antireligious anger and aggressiveness, and it resists the expectation (found in “every age”) for “theatre to be oracular” (xi). Revolting against (and revolted by) the “meretriciousness” of such expectations, Beckett and the other playwrights are said to have been “outraged by life as their society accepted it[,] and eventually…by the human condition itself” (xi). The chapter on Beckett, titled “The Difficulty of Dying” (85–131), usefully contrasts his dramatic world with that of Eugène Ionesco and concludes that “the world of Beckett does not undergo the degeneration from innocence to doom that marks the progress of Ionesco’s action. Beckett’s world is doomed at birth” (94–95), so that the action of Godot is cyclical (circular) whereas that of Ionesco is linear. In The Long Sonata of the Dead: A Study of Samuel Beckett (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1969; New York: Grove Press, 1969), Michael Robinson contends that in turning to the theater from prose fiction, Beckett found “a double freedom[:] the opportunity to explore the blank spaces between the words and the ability to provide visual evidence of the untrustworthiness of language” (230). The chapter on Waiting for Godot (245–261) is especially effective in linking the play to the Pensées of Blaise Pascal (1623–1677; first complete ed., 1844), particularly citing a passage on man’s “inward emptiness” when “completely at rest.” Robinson asserts that the tramps’ “nobility lies in their persistent search for meaning; their tragedy [is] in the impotence of the intelligence to overcome the incommensurables that surround it” (249). The relationship between Pozzo and Lucky is assessed in terms of Hegel’s master/slave dichotomy, particularly as it is discussed in Albert Camus’ The Rebel (orig. L’Homme révolté, 1951; Eng. trans. 1954 [abridged], 1956 [complete]). For further discussion regarding this Camus work in relation to Beckett’s, see Hema V. Raghavan’s Samuel Beckett: Rebels and Exiles in His Plays (New Delhi: Arnold, 1988). Robinson’s book, the chapters of which deal sequentially with Beckett’s fiction through The Unnamable and, in a separate part, with his plays through Play, is among the most authoritative, eloquent, and lucid of the early guidebooks to Beckett’s early writings; it is indeed unfortunate that there have been no updated editions of it. Originally published as Beckett: A Study of His Plays (New York: Hill and Wang, 1972), John Fletcher and John Spurling’s Beckett: The Playwright (3rd rev. ed.; New York: Hill and Wang, 1985) contains an especially useful introduction that focuses on several crucial (but unfortunately undocumented) statements by Beckett himself: “If you want to find the origins of Waiting for Godot, look at [his novel] Murphy” (25); “I con-

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ceived [the novel] Molloy and what followed the day I realized my own stupidity. Then I set myself to write about what I feel” (25); “[Godot is] a play that is striving all the time to avoid definition” (39). Fletcher and Spurling rightly emphasize the themes of impotence and ignorance that recur throughout Beckett’s works, and their chapter on Godot (“Bailing Out the Silence,” 55–68) includes among the play’s dramatic antecedents August Strindberg’s A Dream Play, J. M. Synge’s The Well of the Saints, Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi, and others that “share a feeling of inconclusiveness” (57). Richard Coe’s Samuel Beckett (London: Olivier and Boyd, 1964; rev. ed., 1968; New York: Grove Press, 1970) begins with an analysis of Lucky’s speech as “an extraordinary résumé—in a form which is by no means as garbled as might at first appear—of the Beckettian universe” in that its “initial premiss [sic] leads him nowhere…[and] resolves itself into a lament” (1). Coe argues that the terms “despair” and “absurd” are “wholly inadequate to describe Beckett’s attitude to the human condition” and that instead the key concept is “impossibility” (1–2). The plays are primarily discussed in the book’s final chapter, “A Heap of Millet,” in which Coe argues that their “Grey Eminence” is the Greek philosopher Zeno, who was “particularly concerned to show that the movements and thoughts of a finite being in space and time are unrelated to, and incompatible with, the ‘reality’ of the universe, since the essence of reality is infinity” (89). Coe also contends that Estragon, with his nearly “useless” memory, is “slightly nearer to [such] timelessness” than Vladimir and “is almost (but still not quite) outside time” (90). David H. Hesla’s The Shape of Chaos: An Interpretation of the Art of Samuel Beckett (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1971) contains a more detailed discussion of the theme of time in Waiting for Godot, contending that “passing the time is the chief occupation” of Didi and Gogo amid the emptiness of “the Now” (131–132). Godot can thus “be summed up in phrases such as ‘the Future Ground’ or ‘Possible Absolute’” (135). Examining the play in terms of Hegel’s essentialism, Hesla contends that “what we have in Waiting for Godot is Eschatology without Incarnation, the teleological suspension of the ethical effected by or accounted for not by faith…but by the utter absence of any present, actual event which can provide a reason for initiating ethically determined action” (136). Martin Heidegger’s concept of Dasein is also thoughtfully applied and concisely defined. In Steven J. Rosen’s Samuel Beckett and the Pessimistic Tradition (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers, 1976), important antecedents of Beckett’s works are to be found in those of Blaise Pascal, Søren Kierkegaard, and Arthur

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Schopenhauer. Rosen argues that Waiting for Godot evinces “the levelling and simplifying effect of a pessimistic attitude” that “serves a defensive function: it wards off annoying and distracting trivialities” as well as “preclud[ing] careful thought and painstaking examination of details” (39). The play is discussed in little detail, however, and Rosen’s attitude toward it is exemplified in the claim that “the air of mystery that pervades Waiting for Godot…has an effect both comic and poetic, because it is juxtaposed against the preoccupations of characters which, in most respects, are remarkably banal” (80). Vivian Mercier’s Beckett/Beckett (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977) discusses Beckett’s works in terms of a series of dialectic oppositions, many of which critics have “tend[ed] to emphasize one of its poles to the almost total neglect of the other” (11). The chapter headings, which list “the antithesis before the too-familiar thesis,” are “Ireland/The World,” “Gentleman/Tramp,” “Classicism/Absurdism,” “Painting/Music,” “Eye/ Ear,” “Artist/Philosopher,” and “Woman/Man.” The latter, he argues, subsumes such other binaries as compassion/cruelty, optimism/pessimism, and hope/despair (12). He avoids the opposition of comic/tragic, however, contending that Beckett cannot believe in, or at least cannot create, a genuine tragic hero— powerful, proud, yet essentially good save for the tragic flaw. Beckett’s antiheroes do not aspire, so they can never fall…. Another deterrent to tragedy is the absence of free will…. His characters…[are] slaves to Fate. (12–13)

The discussion of Waiting for Godot in the chapter “Gentleman/Tramp” emphasizes the educated diction and “extreme politeness” that Vladimir and Estragon often display (49); they are more accurately to be described as “shabby-genteel [rather] than ragged” (47). In The Shape of Paradox: An Essay on Waiting for Godot (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), Bert O. States analyzes the way in which, even from the beginning of the play, “we are in the presence of a massive duplicity which is at once the source of its peculiar openness and its resistance to interpretation[, in that] everything has a way of meaning something and at the same time blurring any clear sign of representational intention” (7). He devotes particularly close examination to the “shape” of the paradox of the crucified thieves as elaborated in the writings of St. Augustine. Accordingly, he suggests, the play constitutes “a new myth, …a parable for today, such as might appear in a latter-day Bible aimed at accommodating modern problems of despair and alienation” (20). He also contends that Pozzo is Godot, with the argument-hedging qualification that “it is not necessary to have a real Godot or even a bona fide Godot symbol

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in order to have (in a manner of speaking) a Godot arrival, a point about which the play can discourse on its most important subject[, since] all that is needed is the structural equivalent of ‘a Coming’” (54–55). Pozzo has, in effect, a “visible role as the Godot of the secular world (symbolized by Lucky)” (54). Myth-based criticism (by which Pozzo is also eventually equated with Phèdre [93]) shapes States’s erudite and often recondite argument. Katharine Worth’s The Irish Drama of Europe from Yeats to Beckett (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1978) expands the list of major dramatic antecedents for Waiting for Godot to include works by W. B. Yeats, J. M. Synge, and Maurice Maeterlinck. In the book’s final chapter, devoted to Beckett, she argues that above all Beckett is close to Yeats in his achievement of a remarkable “double” effect: the self-conscious and the unconscious elements in his drama are kept in a delicate sense of equilibrium so that the incessant activity of the conscious, scrutinizing, probing self leaves untouched the integrity of the spontaneous, intuitive, irrational self. Along with this goes the striking doubleness which makes the drama seem at once real and dream-like, the reflection of an outer and inner world, an engagement of recognisable personalities and at the same time something more impersonal, as if these pseudo-couples were interlocking elements of a complex psychic organisation. (259)

Worth focuses particular attention on Yeats’s play At the Hawk’s Well, known to have been one of Beckett’s favorite plays, among the major literary precedents for Waiting for Godot, and she notes that “Beckett has provided the most complete answer to Maeterlinck’s question, ‘Is a static theatre possible?’” (245). Worth’s Samuel Beckett’s Theatre: Life Journeys (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001) furthers her analysis of the links with Yeats, Maeterlinck, and Charles Dickens and draws on her experience as a producer and director of Beckett’s works as well as her personal contact with him. The analysis of Waiting for Godot in this volume includes an unusually close examination of the theatricalism of basic elements of the set—the road, the tree, and the moon. She also includes many valuable performance-based details of mostly London-based productions. In their introduction to Waiting for Death: The Philosophical Significance of Beckett’s En attendant Godot (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1979), Ramona Cormier and Janis L. Palliser announce their “two interrelated undertakings—the evaluation of existing criticism with close reference to the text and the exposure of Beckett’s world view

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as it emerges through a literary and ideological analysis of the play” (1). For a book dealing with philosophical significance, however, the premise announced early in the chapter on the play’s characters seems at best extremely questionable: “It goes without saying [though they say it anyway!], of course, that because his nihilistic view is a distorted one, showing man only at his worst, Beckett has in the strictest sense failed to portray universal man” (5). Furthermore, readers are told, The pivotal theme…is death, man’s ultimate limitation. Life, as portrayed in this play, is bleak, sterile, meaningless, and the height of its absurdity, its purposelessness, is shown implicitly by the existence of literal, physical death…. In our opinion, there is no other way to read this play. (80–81)

Notwithstanding such facile generalizations and their absolutist, quasiauthoritarian tone, a number of the basic issues are adequately surveyed in the following chapters: “The Characters,” “Memory and Identity,” “Aspects of Time and Place,” “Communication,” “Tragedy and Comedy,” and “Philosophy and Nature.” In The Transformations of Godot (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1980), Frederick Busi offers an onomastic (name-based) analysis of the play, contending that “these individuals are not really waiting for some person named Godot” (4–5) and that Beckett, through the names he chooses, suggests that his two tramps, in waiting for Godot, are really waiting for themselves. In the shape of Pozzo he is already present among them and they do not know it. More important, they do not wish to know it. (2)

Busi describes his “claim to originality in this study [as being in] the attention I bring to bear on Beckett’s linguistic development of the schizoid self as revealed through character names” (8), and he (Busi) acknowledges that his method has been influenced by the philological method of Leo Spitzer and the hermeneutics of Roland Barthes. The book’s second chapter, “Rebirths of Harlequins,” assesses the impact of the commedia dell’arte and Cervantes’s Don Quixote on Beckett’s images of clowns. “Transfiguration,” the third chapter, focuses primarily on the various appellations given to Lucky, paying attention also to psychological doubling and Beckett’s use of a play-within-a-play motif; accordingly, Busi’s thesis here is that “Pozzo and Lucky are the doubles of Didi and Gogo[, whose] connection with the tramps is on the order of the Doppelgänger” (29), and he analyzes the dumb-show hat exchange and play-within-a-play occurring when Vladimir and Estragon imitate Pozzo and Lucky. The fourth chapter, “Advent,”

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argues that “Beckett has presented the characters in Waiting for Godot in a sophisticated Trinitarian dimension that renders them equal and different all at the same time”—though Busi also insists (on the same page, in fact) that “Beckett has no religious axe to grind, no religious viewpoint to advocate or to denounce” (66). Specifically, Busi postulates that Beckett “has chosen to parody [the Christian scheme of things]…not through the orthodox but rather through the heretical theological traditions,” specifically “the ancient Gnostic theogonies” (77). The book includes two appendixes: the first offers a synopsis of the theology of Marcion of Synope, “the most notorious and influential dissident of Christian antiquity” (77); the second appendix traces his political and aesthetic impact. As Busi himself acknowledges, his “is not another general study of Waiting for Godot” (1) and is of most interest to those whose basic understanding of the play is already well grounded. “Presence and Repetition in Beckett’s Theatre,” chapter 6 of Steven Connor’s Samuel Beckett: Repetition, Theory, and Text (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988) examines the plays within the context of the performance theories of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Antonin Artaud. As Connor explains, “in Gadamer’s formulation, the model of the text as absolute origin and the performance as variable is abandoned, for more reproducibility…guarantees the presence of the being of the play through multiple embodiments” (116). For further details, see Gadamer’s Truth and Method (London: Sheed and Ward, 1981), 104–107, and Joel Weinsheimer’s Gadamer’s Hermeneutics: A Reading of Truth and Method (New Haven, Conn.: Yale, 1985). In his essays of the 1930s, Artaud also “argue[d] for a non-repetitive theatre, one no longer slavishly obedient to the written texts which precede and control it” (117). Connor also differentiates two types of “the repetitive” in Waiting for Godot: circular repetition and repetitive series (121). The former makes every day seem more or less the same, endlessly repeated, whereas the latter “seems to promise an end point”— the arrival of Godot, for example. S. E. Gontarski’s The Intent of Undoing in Samuel Beckett’s Dramatic Texts (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985) defines the term “undoing” as “a movement toward simplicity, toward the essential, toward the universal” and contends that “with such universalizing Beckett achieves much of the antiemotional quality Brecht achieved with his Alienation effect and historicizing” (3). Although the book does not specifically focus on Waiting for Godot since its “complete compositional record” does not exist (i.e., there are no preliminary drafts on which “genetic” criticism depends), its analyses of Beckett’s later plays (beginning with Endgame) often allude to his first play in useful ways.

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The focus of Sidney Homan’s Beckett’s Theaters: Interpretations for Performance (Lewisburg, Penn.: Bucknell University Press, 1986) “is on the self-reflective nature of his theater, and the imagery…based on anything within the gamut of our theatrical experience: the playwright, his craft, the physical theater, the theater itself as a metaphor, actors, the concept of dialogue, metaphor or simile, the audience, and, most important, the energies generated among that trinity of playwright, actor, and audience in sustaining a meaningful illusion on stage” (17). The first chapter, “Waiting for Godot: The Art of Playing” (31–57), includes a close rhetorical reading of the opening lines in terms of Hegelian dialectics, followed by a discussion of the play’s “assault” on conventional unities of dramatic construction (32); the only certainty is the “grinding presence” of “the present moment” (34) during which “two separate nonstories” occur (37). Like Beckett’s tramps, the audience waits in vain for the arrival of Godot; in effect, the wait is “identical with the unworthies before us [i.e., Vladimir and Estragon]—and around us and behind us” (38), whether in a theater or, in Homan’s case, the 10 Florida state prisons where he has directed the play. From this stage experience, Homan usefully sorts the play’s actor-to-actor interchanges and its actor-to-audience interplay, the latter of which are explicit acknowledgments within the text of the physical theatrical reality and the presence of the audience. Lucky’s speech is “the ultimate in playing, talking to pass the time,…[but] it is a set piece, a bit of entertainment, ultimately not to be elevated above the other entertainments of the play” or privileged as a (or the) key to the play’s meaning (40). Accordingly, the play’s world is “most certainly one not defined by any of the ‘baggage’ of time-honored philosophers and theologians” (43), which, like Lucky’s physical baggage, must be put down. Homan argues that “if there is no Godot to witness and ratify their actions, we are there, the ‘Godot’ for who[m] they have waited” (50). The book’s preface contains a useful and concise definition of Beckett’s aesthetic, including a list of the kinds of subject matter that his art excludes. Self-reflexivity is also the focus of Shimon Levy’s Samuel Beckett’s Self-Referential Drama: The Three I’s (New York: St. Martin’s, 1990), which adopts the hermeneutical approach of theorists Paul Ricouer and Wolfgang Iser, though adapting their precepts for performance-based rather than reading-based analysis. The literary and philosophical contexts of self-reflexiveness are summarized in the first chapter, “Philosophical Notions” (1–14), with particular attention to Descartes. Levy’s subsequent analysis includes not only the self-reflectiveness of presentation and performance but also the self-referencing of both the implied audience (in the text) and the actual audience (in the theater) at any given performance. The

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“many deliberate cross references” (intertexts) in “Beckett’s highly selfreferential group of works” are also assessed as an example of Beckett’s own self-reflectiveness (xi). Levy also points out that Beckett’s use of the “Offstage is…a uniquely original Beckett device, harnessed to ‘presentify’ nothingness dramatically and the void theatrically” (x). He identifies three “approaches to the audience” in Beckett’s plays: “direct appeal (verbal and non-verbal); indirect appeal (again, both verbal and non-verbal); and a deliberate depiction of an actor-audience relationship on stage…as part of the theatrical situation itself” (88). The chapter “Dramatic Practices and Theatrical Technique” (15–57) is subdivided into discussions of space, movement, light, stage properties, and “the Poetics of Offstage.” The triple “I” of the book’s subtitle refers to “the ‘I’ of Beckett, the ‘I’ of the actor (as both person and role), and finally and hopefully, the ‘I’ of the audience” (99)—categories that, Levy parenthetically acknowledges, are present “in most theatrical situations”(99) in addition to Beckett’s own, although the degree of Beckett’s characteristic self-reflexivity makes them worthy of separate examination here. In The Man in the Bowler Hat: His History and Iconography (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), Fred Miller Robinson presents a history of bowler-hat wearers in twentieth-century literature, painting, and cinema. He thus provides an extraordinarily rich, visual context for Beckett’s tramps, the subject of his sixth chapter (149–164). Miller also contends that “no writer has given more thought to hats than Beckett” (152), who makes them the subject of much comic “business” throughout the play. In Samuel Beckett’s Artistic Theory and Practice: Criticism, Drama, and Early Fiction (New York: St. Martin’s, 1997), James Acheson focuses on Beckett’s decision to shift the description of the play’s subtitle from pièce en deux actes (play in two acts) to tragicomedy in two acts in the English translation. There are, Acheson contends, important reasons for the change—reasons that are ultimately linked to his interest in the relationship between art and the limits of human knowledge…. A wholly tragic play might imply the existence outside it of a settled, traditional world of gods, kings, heroes and villains—of metaphysical, social and ethical certainty;…a wholly comic play might evoke an optimistic world oblivious to the inescapable uncertainty attendant on the limits of human knowledge. (143)

He also briefly discusses the relationship between the play and Antonin Artaud’s theories of “The Theatre and Cruelty.”

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In The Painted Word: Samuel Beckett’s Dialogue with Art (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), Lois Oppenheim contends that “the unifying force of Beckett’s work is a preoccupation with the visual as paradigm” (142). Accordingly, “in Beckett’s theatre the image outweighs the word: the two tramps in Godot…have a force more enduring than the scripted text” (58–59); furthermore, the Pop [Art] movement’s multiplication of images,…with their overdetermination and absence of emotional depth, provoke[s] an undoing of psychosocial meaning similar to that in Beckett. The outward focus on the world, as opposed to an affective response to it; the challenge to the modernist institutionalization of the purity of art; and the drawing of inspiration from the ordinary—these are the evident links between Beckett and Pop. But I would deepen the association by saying that, with the predominance of the visual (whether the centrality of the image in Beckett or its overproduction in Pop), an ambivalent role is assigned by both to thought. (59)

Oppenheim later analyzes Beckett’s works in terms of “ekphrasis,” defined as “the verbal representation of a work of art[,]…inscrib[ing] in the poetic or other discourse a visual moment stopped in time” (137), as for example in John Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” In Beckett’s writings, however, “ekphrasis…takes a distinctly nonmimetic turn; it dramatizes perception as it points to the unreliability of representation of the (already unreliable) real” (141). Beckett’s knowledge of art, thoroughly documented in Knowlson’s Damned to Fame, is usefully elaborated here, and the final chapter, “Worded Image/Imaged Word,” analyzes various artists’ paintings and drawings in response to Beckett’s (mostly later) works. Although Declan Kiberd contends that Beckett will longer be remembered for his prose than for his dramas, his chapter “Religious Writing: Beckett and Others” in Inventing Ireland (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996) contains a number of provocative assertions about Waiting for Godot. He considers Beckett “a supremely religious artist…[who] confronted some of the great themes of the puritan conscience: work, effort, reward, anxious self-scrutiny, the need for self-responsibility, and the distrust of artifice and even of art” (454). He identifies “the arbitrary, undeserved nature of suffering” as a persistent Beckettian theme, conjoined with “the attempt to scrutinize the mind of a God who does not feel obligated to make any clarifying appearances of explanations” (454–455). Beckett’s bare stages, “so stripped of unnecessary artifice or ornament,…[may be seen] as low-church altars” (458). Kiberd also notes “a deep reservation about play-acting…in the implied condemnation of hypertheatricality of characters like Pozzo” and contends that in Waiting

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for Godot “it is almost impossible for the actor playing each tramp to keep a clear memory of the sequence of his own lines as distinct from the other’s, because their speeches criss-cross so confusingly throughout the play” (458). Surprisingly, he also suggests that Pozzo “is ‘punished’ for an insincere evocation of nightfall by the permanent fall of night over eyes henceforth blinded” (459). The critical silence that Lois Gordon’s Reading Godot (New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 2002) is intended to fill has been precisely defined in her introduction: While the body of Beckett criticism has been of immeasurable assistance in explaining the work, it has not dealt adequately with the psychological depths of his characters, with their emotional world—with Beckett’s vision of human nature…. What remains to be examined is that core or foundation that sustains each work’s organic unity and, I believe, generates its universal appeal and subsequent mystery and depth…. What remains to be explored in Beckett is that level of artistry that reflects and touches the universal emotional life and elicits from the least to the most sophisticated audience a deep identification and powerful catharsis. It is perhaps from this that all meaningful philosophical issues arise, from this that the sudden and intuitive revelation of the infinite occurs. (12)

Contending that Beckett was highly influenced by Freudian thought, Gordon cites the definition of the language of the unconscious in which Logical laws of thought…do not apply[, and]…[c]ontrary impulses exist side by side, without cancelling each other out[;]…[t]here is no recognition of the passage of time and…no alteration in…mental processes is produced by the passage of time. (73)

With uncanny precision, this description exactly describes the plight of Vladimir and Estragon, as if the stage world is in fact the terrain of the unconscious. Gordon then applies the Freudian term “conglomeration” (or “conglomerative effect”) in relation to the play’s themes, discussing them in terms of “the process of collecting the fragmentary components of the dream” (75). She emphasizes the recurrence of inconclusiveness in both the dialogue and structure of the play, focusing particularly on Lucky’s long speech, characterizing him as “a maddened Sisyphus” (77) while each of his hearers is “a modern-day ‘Atlas,’ a spiritually and emotionally burdened innocent bearing the world’s best hopes on his shoulders” (77). Pozzo, she claims, “in the end gains a redemptive innocence[,]…ha[ving] been educated by Lucky, the mad, childlike, onetime poet who knows that the end result of all human endeavor is excrement”

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(78). Her fourth chapter, “The Conglomerative Voice: Cain and Abel” (86–96), provides a strikingly original and detailed close reading of that biblical narrative as a pervasive motif in the play. She also explores at length the implications of the conglomerative effect for stage movement and design in productions of the play. Gordon is also the author of “No Exit and Waiting for Godot: Performances in Contrast,” Captive Audience: Prison and Captivity in Contemporary Theater, edited by Kimball King (New York: Routledge, 2004), 166–188, in which she contrasts images of entrapment in the two plays by Sartre and Beckett: whereas Sartre’s characters are trapped in a kind of hell that results from their own bad choices, Vladimir and Estragon are more generally trapped by the human condition. PERFORMANCE STUDIES In Beckett in Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), Jonathan Kalb devotes his third chapter to considerations of acting in the early plays (24–47), including, of course, Waiting for Godot. Of particular interest is his comparison of two productions directed by Alan Schneider, one for television in 1961 and the other at the Sheridan Square Playhouse 10 years later (recorded as a commercial video); he notes a distinctive movement toward a simpler set and a “more absolute” emptiness. The book also includes a number of original interviews with theater practitioners who were involved in various productions of the play: Walter Asmus (173–184), Alvin Epstein (185–196), and Klaus Herm (197–205). William Gruber’s Missing Persons: Character and Characterization in Modern Drama (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994) contends that “‘absurdity’ is entirely the wrong word…for the condition Beckett depicts….We should think of Beckett’s characters not psychologically but figurally[,]…distinguishable only in the most purely functional senses” (102). Unlike the characters in Beckett’s later plays, those in Waiting for Godot “are shaped entirely by traditional mimetic assumptions”(79)—but even they should not be judged by standards of more representational works and more conventionally drawn characters. Les Essif’s Empty Figure on an Empty Stage: The Theatre of Samuel Beckett and His Generation, Drama and Performance Studies 13 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001) explores with unprecedented thoroughness and erudition the use of onstage emptiness and literal darkness to represent both physical and psychological isolation; this he terms “A Meta-Physical [sic] Approach to Beckett’s Drama.” The central issue is eloquently summarized as follows:

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How does the visible, concrete emptiness on the theatrical stage make the connection to the psychic void? How does it create meaning or feeling and elicit an affective or intellectual response by doing so?…There are at least two ways of looking at theatrical empty space: from either a “physical” point of view, or a “meta-physical” one. From a physical point of view, one considers the space as potentially fillable, believing that it is meaningful with respect to its potential to be filled. (63–64)

The more realistic the set of Waiting for Godot is, he argues, the more it “subverts the empty space-empty character connection so essential to the metaphysical reading of Beckett’s work” (64). Accordingly, “there is no way out of the endlessness of emptiness; and the inward turn that Beckett’s characters eventually take leads to an entrapment within an inner empty space” as well (65). Beckett’s famous—or infamous—silences are the aural counterparts of the visual stage emptiness, equally evocative of both the physical and metaphysical realms. Essif’s work is deeply imbued with a practical knowledge of stage exigencies as well as an intellectual appreciation of their philosophical implications—a rare and valuable combination. His book is, in the finest sense, much ado about nothingness. David Bradby’s Beckett: Waiting for Godot (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001) is a volume of Cambridge’s Plays in Production series, edited by Michael Robinson, which provides book-length production histories of major modern plays. Following chapters on Beckett’s career prior to Godot and an overview of the play, Bradby devotes separate chapters to the first production (Paris, 1953), the first productions in English, and early productions in the United States. Beckett’s own production, in 1975 at the Schiller-Theater in Berlin, is given its own entire chapter. That production is, in fact, the dividing point in the stage history of the play: The years 1949 to 1975 were the pioneering stage, when the play seemed genuinely hard to understand, even a little frightening, and when both actors and audiences often felt baffled by it…. This twenty-five year period coincided with developing mastery of theatre, as both playwright and director. As his originality became more apparent, so his interpreters multiplied, and instead of seeming strange and frightening, his theatre work was acclaimed as profound and innovative. The second stage in the production history was after 1975, when it was impossible to undertake a new production without some reference to Beckett’s own. (139)

Particular attention is given to post-1975 productions in Avignon, France (1978); Munich, Germany (1984); and Japan. The chapter “Godot in Political Context” focuses primarily on versions staged in Belgrade, Yugosla-

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via (1956); Sarajevo, Yugoslavia (1993); Cape Town, South Africa (1980); Haifa, Israel (1984); and the Nanterre suburb of Paris (1991). The chapter “Productions at the End of the Twentieth Century” details those at the Old Vic in London (1997); the Gate Theatre in Dublin (1991 and 1999); the Theatre Vidy in Lausanne, Switzerland (1999); and the Teatre Lliure in Barcelona, Spain (1999). A brief chronology of productions, including cast lists, is also included (213–219), as is a selected bibliography. BECKETT AND LITERARY THEORY When, in 1961, Martin Esslin observed in The Theatre of the Absurd that Beckett’s plays “express…what by their very nature [the words] are designed to cover up: the uncertain, the contradictory, [and] the unthinkable” (9), he anticipated with remarkable prescience the issues that would preoccupy many Beckett critics and scholars since the late 1970s as academic and literary specialists, particularly within universities, became increasingly interested in issues of postmodern theory that challenged and in many ways preempted fundamental assumptions about literature, form, and meaning. As Henry Sussman has explained in his essay “The Politics of Language-Based Systems” in Engagement and Indifference: Beckett and the Political, edited by Henry Sussman and Christopher Devenney (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), For those whose intellectual attitudes and tactics were schooled under the high-powered conceptual responsibility demanded by deconstruction, Lacanian psychoanalysis, de Manian rhetoric, and so on, two primary alternatives for intellectual work emerged: (a) a pronounced veering away from conceptual models that questioned the value and significance of or neutralized existential interests and toward those that “inscribed” or “reinscribed” conditions of class and subjectivity—relating to socioeconomic standing, race, gender, and ethnicity—within the intellectual field; or (b) a synthesis, in which conceptual models sympathetic to concerns of subjectivity nonetheless retained the highest degree of linguistic discrimination possible. (1)

Most such analyses concentrated on works of prose and poetry rather than drama, however, in part perhaps because of the entirely separate semiotic systems involved in reading drama-as-text and seeing it produced onstage. Among the nine essays in Sussman and Devaney’s volume, for example, Waiting for Godot is mentioned on precisely two of its 171 pages, according to the book’s index. Eric Levy’s Beckett and the Voice of Species: A Study of the Prose Fiction (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1980) sought to move discussions of Beckett’s works beyond the long-standing Christian versus existentialist

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(or absurdist) dichotomy. Contending that both of these schools of thought “have no difficulty elaborately constructing the two poles, subjective and objective, of [human] experience,” Levy argued that Beckett “addresses the very question of structuring experience into the poles of subject and object” (3–4). Like most post-structuralist theorists, Levy sought to subvert or collapse all such facile binary oppositions in Beckettian scholarship, exposing their inherent self-contradictions in much the same way that, he found, Beckett’s narrators themselves do. Marjorie Perloff’s The Poetics of Indeterminacy: Rimbaud to Cage (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981) defines the key term “indeterminacy” as “what happens…[when] the symbolic evocations generated by the words on the page are no longer grounded in a coherent discourse, so that it becomes impossible to decide which of these associations are relevant and which are not” (18). She also usefully differentiates her use of the term from that prevailing in Derridean theory, as follows: “Indeterminacy, as I use that term in this book, is taken to be the quality of particular art works in a particular period of history rather than as the central characteristic of all texts at all times” (19n). Although her study includes a lengthy chapter on Samuel Beckett (“‘The Shape of a Door’: Beckett and the Poetry of Absence,” 200–247), she discusses only his prose and poetry; nevertheless, many of her insights are readily applicable to the plays as well. S. E. Gontarski’s The Intent of Undoing in Samuel Beckett’s Dramatic Texts, cited above, provides a lucid introduction to such theoretical analysis of Beckett’s works. He specifically associates this trend with the following quotation from Jacques Derrida: To write is not only to know that through writing, through the extremities of style, the best will not necessarily transpire, as Leibniz thought it did in divine creation, nor will the transition to what transpires always be willful, nor will that which is noted down always infinitely express the universe, resembling and reassembling it. It is also to be incapable of making meaning absolutely precede writing…. Meaning must await being said or written in order to inhabit itself, and in order to become, by differing from itself, what it is: meaning. (“Force and Signification,” in Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass [Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1978], 11–12)

As Gontarski explains, Derrida “is here synthesizing a number of currents in European thought,” all of which directly pertain not only to Beckett’s oeuvre in general but to Waiting for Godot in particular: “He [Derrida] cites

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Edmund Husserl as his immediate source, but the analysis comes closer to Martin Heidegger’s suggestion that meaning is inextricably tied to language. Derrida’s major contribution to the theorizing is to shift the emphasis from language to writing” (3). Although Derrida has never specifically written about Beckett, he has remarked that Beckett “is an author to whom I feel very close, or to whom I would like to feel myself very close” (“The Strange Institution Called Literature: An Interview with Jacques Derrida,” with Derek Attridge, trans. Geoffrey Bennington and Rachel Bowlby, in Acts of Literature, ed. Derek Attridge [New York: Routledge, 1992], 60). Although Derrida’s philosophy is too complex to introduce concisely and effectively here, those seeking such an orientation should consult such works as the following: Jonathan Culler, On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1982); Vincent Leitch, Deconstructive Criticism: An Advanced Introduction and Survey (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983); and Christopher Norris, Deconstruction: Theory and Practice (London: Methuen, 1982). Other concise introductions are available in chapter 4 of Terry Eagleton’s Literary Theory: An Introduction (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983); Raman Selden’s A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Criticism (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1986), 84–89; Ross C. Murfin, “What Is Deconstruction?” in many volumes of the Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism series, edited by Ross C. Murfin (Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press). P. J. Murphy’s essay entitled “Beckett and the philosophers” in The Cambridge Companion to Beckett (cited above), 222–240, succinctly introduces the post-structuralist issues that were raised partly in reaction to the writings of Martin Esslin and other first-generation Beckett scholars who tended, “at key critical junctures, [to] identif[y] Beckett’s characters as somehow real or human, when it is the rigorous investigation of their very status as bestowed by language that is at the heart of the Beckettian enterprise” (222). Yet, as Murphy also points out, “Beckett criticism, in spite of its existential humanism, has always been proto-deconstructionist in its general thrust,…with self-cancelling structures and, generally, with the various ‘nothings’ which undermine the very modes of expression” (223). He rightly calls attention to the lucid and insightful account of the Beckett-and-theory controversies that is presented in Iain Wright’s “‘What Matter Who’s Speaking?’: Beckett, the Authorial Subject, and Contemporary Critical Theory,” Southern Review 16.1 (1983): 59–86. In addition to the directorial notes and personal reminiscences cited earlier in this chapter, Herbert Blau’s Sails of the Herring Fleet: Essays on Beckett contains several essays that relate Beckett’s writing to post-

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structuralist literary theory. “The Bloody Show and the Eye of Prey” (77–93), originally part of a panel on “Beckett and Deconstruction,” links Beckett’s works to the thought of Jacques Derrida and Jacques Lacan. “The Oversight of Ceaseless Eyes” (113–123) extends the Lacanian analysis, rightly pointing out that Beckett’s slim volume [on] Proust…was an already exhaustive preface to poststructuralist themes and the specular obsessions of the discourse of desire. The loss, the lack, the rupture, all of it is there, the break in origins and the originary trace, and—in the “gaze [that] is no longer the necromancy that sees in each precious object a mirror of the past”—the terror of separation and uncertain signs. (113)

In his essay “Barthes and Beckett: The Punctum, The Pensum, and the Dream of Love” (94–112), Blau discusses the “ecstatic burden of the tragic pathos, its madness, abject, stupid, the nearly forgotten, discredited, old-fashioned emotion that brings the Barthes of Camera Lucida into the camera obscura of Beckett” (98). The chapter “Beckett and the Emergence of Theory” in Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot/Endgame: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism, edited by Peter Boxall (Cambridge: Icon Books, 2000), 94–136, provides a remarkably thorough three-part history of such analyses of Beckett’s play, with the sections “Beckett, Derrida, and the Resistance to Theory” (94–99), “Beckett, Iser, and Reader Response” (99–116), and “Beckett, Post-Structuralism, and Feminism” (116–136). Boxall’s thesis is that “one of the characteristics of Beckett’s oeuvre is its relative resistance to ongoing developments in contemporary thought” since in “important ways his writing has seemed…untouched by contemporary concerns, verging on the timeless, the ahistorical, the untheorisable” (94). For precisely such reasons, “Roland Barthes avoids Beckett, and he is a noticeably absent figure in the work of Jacques Derrida” (95), who, in an interview with Derek Attridge in 1989, “suggest[ed] that Beckett’s writing is so close to his own deconstructive philosophy [and] itself carries out the activity of deconstruction so well, that it undermines his ability to construct an ‘academic metalanguage’ that could adequately respond to it” (97). Derrida’s statement is reprinted in Boxall’s book (97–98), having originally appeared in Acts of Literature, edited by Derek Attridge (London: Routledge, 1999), 60–61. Critics who emphasized the importance of the reception of texts by readers and theater audiences (as opposed to the production of texts by novelists, poets, or playwrights) constituted what is known as “reader response” school of literary theory, led by (among

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others) Wolfgang Iser and Norman Holland. Iser in particular drew heavily from Beckett’s writings, and Boxall includes extracts from his (Iser’s) The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974) and from his essay “Counter-sensical Comedy and Audience Response in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot,” originally published in Steven Connor, ed., ‘Waiting for Godot’ and ‘Endgame’ (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992). From the same volume, Boxall excerpts Connor’s own essay entitled “The Doubling of Presence in Waiting for Godot and Endgame” as an example of poststructuralist criticism; deconstructive feminism is represented by Mary Bryden’s “Gender in Transition,” originally published in her book entitled Women in Samuel Beckett’s Prose and Drama (Basingstroke: Macmillan, 1993). Anthony Uhlmann’s Beckett and Poststructuralism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) is also among the most lucid and useful guidebooks to such approaches to Beckett’s works, focusing in particular on philosophers Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and his sometimes coauthor Félix Guattari. Although the book focuses primarily on Beckett’s trilogy of novels (Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable), its argument that “in a real sense, Beckett ‘thought differently’ to use Foucault’s term, and that his manner of thinking differently might best be described through recourse to those thinkers whose manner of thinking differently was analogous to his own” (5) is clearly relevant to Waiting for Godot as well. Uhlmann contends that Beckett’s concern with “the question of Being,…which Beckett approached in particular and fairly consistent ways[,]…creates a striking resonance with certain recent trends in French postructuralism” (4), though he acknowledges that Beckett was apparently unfamiliar with their writings (which come later than the trilogy). Identifying this “manner of thinking differently” as “anti-Platonism,” Uhlmann’s introduction provides an effective yet concise overview of the distinctions among the post-structuralists in this regard (5–8) before emphasizing the work of Deleuze (8–12), who, with Guattari, has often cited examples from Beckett’s works to illustrate points in their own writing—although Deleuze, unlike Beckett, is widely considered “a philosopher of affirmation, of joy, of positive Being which requires no negation” (9). The key link between them, Uhlmann argues, is in Beckett’s ongoing interest in exhaustion—physical, mental, linguistic, and artistic, as well as the exhaustion “of modes, which requires a merging again with the plane of immanence, the univocity of Being” (13). The writings of a number of major literary theorists on Beckett’s works have been collected by Jennifer Birkett and Kate Ince in Samuel Beckett

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(New York: Longman, 2000). Although few of them pertain specifically to Waiting for Godot, their insights and methodologies are often applicable to it as well. The essays have been grouped into seven parts: • “Political Criticism”: Theodor W. Adorno, “Trying to Understand Endgame” (37–38); Stephen Watt, “Beckett by Way of Baudrillard: Toward a Political Reading of Samuel Beckett’s Drama” (39–49); Patricia Coughlan, “‘The Poetry Is Another Pair of Sleeves’: Beckett, Ireland, and Modernist Lyric Poetry” (65–82) • “Literature/Philosophy”: Georges Bataille, “Molloy’s Silence” (85–92); Maurice Blanchot, “Where Now, Who Now?” (93–98); Leslie Hill, “The Trilogy Translated” (99–116) • “Deconstruction”: Steven Connor, “Voice and Mechanical Reproduction: Krapp’s Last Tape, Ohio Impromptu, Rockaby, That Time” (119– 133); Thomas Trezine, “Dispossession” (134–154) • “Psychoanalytic Criticism”: Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, “DerisingProduction: The Schizo’s Stroll” (157–162); David Watson, “The Fictional Body: Le Dépeupleur, Bing, Imagination morte imaginez” (163– 181); Daniel Katz, “‘Alone in the Accusative’: Beckett’s Narcissistic Echoes” (182–198) • “Reader Reception”: Wolfgang Iser, “The Art of Failure: The Stifled Laugh in Beckett’s Theatre” (201–230) • “Semiotics”: Carla Locatelli, “Comic Strategies in Beckett’s Narratives” (233–244) • “Feminism/Gender”: Julia Kristeva, “The Father, Love, and Banishment” (247–258); Linda Ben-Zvi, “Not I: Through a Tube Starkly” (259–265)

The volume’s bibliography (277–286) is a particularly useful resource for those interested in such theoretical approaches to Beckett’s oeuvre. PEDAGOGICAL APPROACHES Approaches to Teaching Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, edited by June Schlueter and Enoch Brater (New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1991) focuses primarily on instructional methodologies for the undergraduate classroom and is intended for specialists and nonspecialists alike. Like other volumes in its series (Approaches to Teaching World Literature, edited by Joseph Gibaldi), the book is divided into two parts, with the first detailing teaching resources and the second presenting essays on various approaches to the play. The first part (pages 3–13) surveys editions and productions of the play and provides a list of required and recommended student readings, compiled from responses to a ques-

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tionnaire that was distributed to collegiate teachers of the play (one-third of whom “expressed resistance to collateral reading for undergraduates” [4]). “The Instructor’s Library” offers seven pages of “selective guidance on those sources most appropriate to the classroom” (5), with separate listings for reference materials, background studies, and critical studies. There is also a thorough description of the audiovisual library, listing available resources regarding both Waiting for Godot in particular and Samuel Beckett in general. Following a prologue by Ruby Cohn entitled “Beckett and His Godot” (20–25), the section “Introducing Godot” consists of three essays: “Waiting for Godot and the Principle of Uncertainty,” by William Hutchings (26–30); “‘Let’s Contradict Each Other’: Responding to Godot,” by Michael J. Collins (31–36); and “Teaching Godot from Life,” by Linda Ben-Zvi (37–41). The section “Influences and Backgrounds” begins with Martin Esslin’s “Beckett and the ‘Theatre of the Absurd’” (42–47), a reassessment of “whether—and how—he felt the term was still appropriate, more than twenty years after the publication of his original study,” which introduced the term into critical parlance. Lance St. John Butler assesses “Waiting for Godot and Philosophy” (48–55), while Kristin Morrison offers “Biblical Allusions in Waiting for Godot” (56–63), emphasizing the theme of “suffering [that] permeates human life” and the “note of cynical humor that is heard throughout” Beckett’s “splendidly comic and unmitigatedly pessimistic” work (58). Fred Miller Robinson’s “Tray Bong! Godot and Music Hall” (64–70) has as its thesis that English and Irish “music hall…is the fundamental structure and ambience of Godot, the source of its dramaturgical life” (65); he assesses many of the conventions of this now-unfamiliar form of popular entertainment (cross talk, comic “turns,” interplay with the audience, etc.) and documents the phrase “Tray Bong,” which is specifically quoted in Beckett’s play, as having its source in a comedy routine of Charles Chaplin Sr., a poster for whose act (showing the phrase itself) is reproduced alongside. The influence of silent film comedies is examined by Claudia Clausius in “Waiting for Godot and the Chaplinesque Comic Film Gag” (71–78), who emphasizes Chaplin’s “deflation or defamiliarization of performance” in comic sequences that “expose the essential absurdity beneath this pretense at civilization” (76). The section “Course Contexts” (79–105) contains four essays, each of which assesses the inclusion of Waiting for Godot in a different type of class: Mary Scott Simpson’s “Waiting for Godot and the Forms of Tragedy” (79–84), Katharine H. Burkman’s “Waiting for Godot as a Touchstone in a Modern and Contemporary Drama Course” (85–89), Dina Sherzer’s

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“Teaching Waiting for Godot in a French Drama Course” (90–98), and Charles R. Lyons’s “Teaching Waiting for Godot in a Course on Beckett” (99–105). The volume’s section “Critical Approaches” (106–140) begins with Kevin J. H. Dettmar’s “Waiting for Godot and Critical Theory” (106–115), which describes in detail his use of the play in a course that introduces undergraduates to the diversity of literary theories and methodologies, which he groups into four types: 1. Psychological: psychoanalytic, reader-response 2. Sociohistorical: Marxist, feminist, new historicist, Frankfurt school, reception theory, speech-act theory 3. Mythic: ritual, Christian, archetypal 4. Formal: semiotic, structuralist, New Critical, hermeneutic, Russian formalist (108)

Following a detailed discussion of his course’s sequencing and a number of useful tips on orienting students to the diversity of these methodologies, Dettmar provides a bibliography of 45 critical articles (through 1986) that exemplify the above four categories; a fifth list provides three post-structuralist or deconstructionist essays (112–115). He quite astutely concludes with the observation that “what we are trying to create in the classroom…is close to Bakhtin’s notion of dialogue: a dialogue in which the final word has not been spoken, a dialogue that precludes the existence of an authoritative narrative that would reduce our dialogue to a monologue”; accordingly, “neither Beckett, nor Derrida, nor you, nor I, must be allowed to have the final word” (112). Stephen Barker’s “Lecture and Lecture: Recitation and Reading in Waiting for Godot” (116–125) examines the ways in which Beckett’s play “valorizes and plays with” two different types of “reading”: (a) “a recitation, a public event, a didactic exercise with a certain decorum” and (b) “a private, heuristic event, a reading” (116). Barker examines in detail three instances of this double meaning: the opening exchange between Vladimir and Estragon, Lucky’s tirade, and Vladimir’s final lengthy speech in the play (pages 58a–58b in the Grove Press edition). J. Terence McQueeny offers “A Comparative Approach to Godot” (126–132), analyzing the differences between the French and English texts of the play “for what they reveal about Beckett’s strategy as self-translator” (126). Una Chaudhuri’s “Who Is Godot? A Semiotic Approach to Beckett’s Play” (133–140) explores the play’s “self-reflexive hints on how drama conquers insignificance and achieves signification…as an example of ‘tantalizing’ dramaturgy, a mode

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of signification by which meaning is rendered both inevitable and impossible” (133). The book’s final section is “Performance-Oriented Approaches” (141– 167). Stanton B. Garner Jr.’s “Teaching the Theater, Teaching Godot” (141–148) is subdivided into the following sections: “Existentialism and the Postwar Stage,” “The Unaccommodated Stage,” and “The Field of Performance.” Toby Silverman Zinman sets forth a strategy in “Teaching Godot through Set and Poster Design” (149–155). Sidney Homan’s “Waiting for Godot: Inmates as Students and—Then—Teachers” (156–162) draws on his experience presenting a production of the play that he had directed for audiences of inmates in a number of Florida’s state prisons, where the reaction to the play “was informed and eloquent beyond anything [he] had ever known in the classroom” (157). S. E. Gontarski’s “‘Dealing with a Given Space’: Waiting for Godot and the Stage” (163–167) assesses “the tension between the concreteness of theater and the ambiguities that language…allows,…that is, character as physical presence and character as a verbal construct” (165); he also warns of “a danger of synechdochic reduction”(167) in privileging one interpretation over another. The book also contains a 12-page bibliography. PERIODICALS DEVOTED TO SAMUEL BECKETT’S WORKS The primary scholarly journal devoted to Samuel Beckett’s works is the Journal of Beckett Studies, founded in 1976 by James Knowlson and originally issued by John Calder, Beckett’s English publisher, in conjunction with Riverrun Press in the United States. Because it was published by a commercial publishing house without the backing of a university press, it lacked the standard means of distribution that most scholarly journals have; accordingly, complete runs of the journal are quite scarce, and its issuance was sometimes erratic. To make the articles from early issues more widely available, a number of them were reprinted in The Beckett Studies Reader, edited by S. E. Gontarski (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1993), accompanied by Gontarski’s publication history of it entitled “The Journal of Beckett Studies, The First Fifteen Years: An Introduction” (1–8). The “new series” of the Journal of Beckett Studies, edited by S. E. Gontarski and published by the Department of English of The Florida State University was begun in 1992. In addition to scholarly articles about Beckett’s works and reviews of books related to his life, times, and writings, the journal also reviews stage productions from throughout the world, often featuring full-page black-and-white photographs from them.

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Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui is an annual bilingual volume of Beckett scholarship (English and French), with each volume devoted to a single topic. The topics of the first 12 volumes are as follows (listing their topics in English only, when available): volume 1, “Samuel Beckett, 1970–1989”; volume 2, “Beckett in the 1990’s”; volume 3, “Intertexts in Beckett’s Work”; volume 4, “The Savage Eye”; volume 5, “Beckett and Psychoanalysis”; volume 6, “Samuel Beckett: Crossroads and Borderlines”; volume 7, “Beckett versus Beckett”; volume 8, “Poetry and Other Prose”; volume 9, “Beckett and Religion/Beckett/Aesthetics/Politics”; volume 10, “L’Affect dans l’oeuvre beckettienne”; volume 11, “Samuel Beckett: Endlessness in the Year 2000”; volume 12, “Pastiches, Parodies & Other Imitations.” These volumes are an indispensable resource for those doing research on the topics specified. The Beckett Circle is the newsletter of the Samuel Beckett Society, published each year since 1980 in fall and spring. Complete runs of The Beckett Circle are quite scarce, but they provide an extraordinarily detailed chronicle of productions of Beckett’s works throughout the world, often accompanied by production photographs. Extensive coverage is also given to Beckett festivals and conferences, along with reviews of books in English, French, and other languages. A list of new and forthcoming booklength studies of Beckett’s works also appears in each issue. BIBLIOGRAPHIES The most extensive early book-length bibliography of Beckett’s works is Samuel Beckett: His Life and His Works, edited by Raymond Federman and John Fletcher (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), which documented his works and books solely devoted to him through 1968, with shorter criticism complete through 1966. Brief summaries and commentaries on individual critical studies are included, and there is a complete descriptive bibliography of first editions and subsequent printings. Primary and secondary sources in both English and French are listed chronologically, grouped according to type. A supplement to their listings is available in Robin J. Davis’s “Beckett Bibliography after Federman and Fletcher,” Journal of Beckett Studies 2 (Summer 1977): 63–69. Shorter but useful bibliographies related to Beckett’s works are also available. The 85-page Samuel Beckett: A Checklist, by J. F. Tanner and J. D. Vann (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1969), covers the same period as Federman and Fletcher’s book but does not deal with the separate editions of Beckett’s works and lists only secondary materials published in English. Jackson R. Bryer’s “Samuel Beckett: A Checklist of Criticism” can be found in Melvin J. Friedman’s Samuel Beckett Now

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(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 219–259. Frederick J. Marker’s “Beckett Criticism in Modern Drama: A Checklist” appeared in volume 19 of that journal (1976): 261–263. Joseph Browne’s “The ‘Crrritic’ and Samuel Beckett: A Bibliographic Essay” appeared in a special issue of College Literature ( 8 [1981]: 292–309) that was entirely devoted to Beckett’s works. Cathleen Culotta Andonian’s Samuel Beckett: A Reference Guide (Boston: Hall, 1989) offers complete coverage through 1984, with its annotated entries chronologically arranged. She is also the editor of The Critical Response to Samuel Beckett (New York: Greenwood Press, 1998), discussed among the collections of essays and reviews earlier in this chapter. David Pattie’s The Complete Critical Guide to Samuel Beckett (London: Routledge, 2000) is divided into three parts: “Life and Contexts” (3–48), “Work” (49–100), and “Criticism” (101–202). It focuses particularly on “the critical debates that have surrounded Beckett’s work: the influence of Cartesian and existential philosophy; the influence of theoretical discussions, such as deconstruction and psychoanalytic criticism, on the reception of his work” (1). Pattie divides his history of Beckett criticism into four parts: “Beckett the Cartesian: 1959–1969” (105–125), “The Beckett Industry” (125–152), “Theoretical Beckett: 1980–1995” (152–194), and “Recent Criticism: 1995–”(194–198). Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot/Endgame: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism, edited by Peter Boxall (Cambridge: Icon Books, 2000) also divides the history of criticism on these plays into four parts: “First Responses to Waiting for Godot and Endgame” (9–50), “Humanising the Void” (51–93), “Beckett and the Emergence of Theory” (94–136), and “Political Criticism” (137–167). Each chapter includes excerpts from selected essays and reviews, which Boxall’s commentary places in much wider context. The “First Responses” section consists of two parts: “Nothing Happens Twice: Reviews and Early Journalism” (featuring the standard selection of comments by Harold Hobson, Kenneth Tynan, Patrick Kavanagh, Vivian Mercier, and Jacques Lemarchand) and “Presence, Negativity, and the Human Condition: First Essays,” which juxtaposes the humanist approach of Martin Esslin and the Marxism of Theodor Adorno (on Endgame as a critique of postwar European culture). “Humanising the Void” assesses the development of the “liberal humanist reading” of Beckett’s work. The first of its two subchapters presents Martin Esslin’s work, giving particular attention to his introduction to the 1965 collection of essays that he edited, in which he defined three modes of critical inquiry that he deemed valid responses to Beckett’s writing (explicating allusions, discovering their structural principles, and shaping how the writer’s work

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is perceived by the reading and theatergoing publics). The second subchapter surveys the contributions of Ruby Cohn and Hugh Kenner, with excerpts from her Samuel Beckett: The Comic Gamut and his Reader’s Guide to Samuel Beckett and Samuel Beckett: A Critical Study. The chapter “Beckett and the Emergence of Theory” has been described previously in the section “Beckett and Post-Structuralist Theory.” Boxall’s fourth chapter, “Political Criticism,” includes extracts from Ernst Fischer’s Art against Ideology, Werner Huber’s assessment of Beckett in relation to Bertolt Brecht, and Declan Kiberd’s reading of the two plays as postcolonial texts in Inventing Ireland (London: Jonathan Cape, 1995; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996).

INDEX

Abbey Theatre (Dublin), 87 Ackerley, S. E., 48 Adelaide Festival (Australia), 91 A la Recherche du temps perdu (Proust), 63 “Alterable Whey of Words: The Texts of Waiting for Godot” (Zeifman), 15 American Repertory Theatre (New York City), 94, 101 Anouilh, Jean, 74, 81 Arts Theatre Club (London), 82 Asmus, Walter, 16, 20, 88, 90, 91, 92, 96, 102 As You Like It (Shakespeare), 46 Audubon, John James, 69, 70 Australian (newspaper), 106 Avignon Festival (Paris), 96 Baker, Phil, 66 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 43 The Bald Soprano (Ionesco), 77 Barnard, G. C., 66 Basic Writings of Nietzsche (Nietzsche), 65

Baxter Theatre (University of Capetown), 89–90 BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), 19, 85, 86, 96 Beaumont, Francis, 32, 79 Beckett, Edward, 105, 106 Beckett, Samuel: bibliography of, 17; death of, 13; as director, 15, 17, 85, 86, 87–88, 94; estate of, 94, 104, 106–9; favorite publisher of, 14; “perhaps,” 26, 47; resistance to television, 17–19 Beckett, Samuel, works of: Act without Words, 18; All That Falls, 18; …but the clouds…, 18; “Dante… Bruno. Vico. Joyce,” 24; The Divine Comedy, 39; Eleuthéria, 20; Embers, 18; Endgame, 20, 28, 53, 64, 85, 92, 94, 101; Film, 18, 71, 90; Fizzles, 76; Ghost Trio, 18; Happy Days, 28, 40, 44, 53, 104; How It Is, 43, 44; Krapp’s Last Tape, 20, 85, 90, 92; Malone Dies, 90; Play, 21, 40; Proust, 63; Quad,

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18; The Unnamable, 28, 40, 43, 44; Worstward Ho, 44 The Beckett Actor: Jack MacGowran, Beginning to End (Young), 18 Beckett and the Myth of Psychoanalysis (Baker), 66 A Beckett Canon (Cohn), 13, 14 Beckett Circle; Newsletter of the Samuel Beckett Society (Duckworth), 105 The Beckett Country: Samuel Beckett’s Ireland (O’Brien), 36 Beckett Directs Beckett project, 19, 20, 92 “Beckett Estate Proudly Presents… Waiting for Permission” (London), 103 Beckett Festival (Dublin), 96 Beckett on Film project, 20, 21, 40 Beginning to End (MacGowran), 22 Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology (Sartre), 54, 56 Being and Time (Heidegger), 66 Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time, Division I (Dreyfus), 66 Bellini, Giovanni, 89 Bentham, Jeremy, 61 Bergman, Ingmar, 18 Bessler, Albert, 86 Bible: crucified thieves, accounts of, 1, 2, 24, 29, 32, 41, 48–49; disciples on the road to Emmaus, 50–51; Ecclesiastes, 53–54; New Testament, 51–52, 53; Saturday, 52, 63; separating the sheep from the goats, 24, 35, 49–50; suffering servant, 31, 41, 50, 53 The Blacks (Genet), 85 Blackstone Theatre (DePaul University), 96 Blin, Roger, 14, 81, 85, 87, 90 Bloom, Harold, 65

The Book of Common Prayer (1662 “final” version), 52 Bord Scannán na hÉireann (Irish film board), 20 Bosc, Thérèse, 96 Bottom (BBC series), 96 Boy, performers: Alland, Denis, 87; Chamberlain, Bert, 85; Cluchey, Louis Beckett, 19, 91, 92; Deschamps, Philippe, 92; Deutch, Philipe, 87; Doe, Simon, 91; Figgis, Dan, 87; Fisher, Colin, 99; Fitzmaurice, Seamus, 84; Haas, Lukas, 92; Halpin, Luke, 19; Hyman, Andy, 101; Jay, David, 87; Kaiser, Roland, 82; Lawlor, Tom, 92; Lecointe, Serge, 81; Levine, Gabe and Jesse, 95; Libera, Ja, 102; Martin, Kirk, 86; McGovern, Sam, 20; Mileham, Mark, 19; Murray, R. J., Jr., 90; Orofino, Jean-Luc, 99; Oster, Jimmy, 84; Packham, Robert, 90; Privett, Simon, 91; Psutka, Phillip, 104; Sense, Torten, 88; Solis, Luchino Solito de, 18; Sprunkel, Gerhard, 87; Turturro, Amedeo, 105; Walker, Michael, 83; Wilkerson, David, 107; Young, Eamon, 92 Brady-Garvin, Kathleen, 93 Brecht, Bertolt, 79 Brooklyn Academy of Music (New York), 16, 90 Brueghel, Pieter, 89 Brut de Beton company (Paris), 96 Burgess, Anthony, 52 Busy Bodies (Laurel and Hardy film), 71 Butterworth townhall (Transkei), 89 Caesar, Sid, 34 Calder, John, 19 Campagnie ARRT (Paris), 99 Campbell, Julie, 100 Camus, Albert, 58–59, 73

INDEX Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC Audio), 22 Carlyle, Thomas, 43 Carroll, Lewis, 34, 75 The Chairs (Ionesco), 77 Chaplin, Charlie, 37, 70, 71 “Check the Gate: Putting Beckett on Film” (Documentary), 21 Chekhov, Anton, 39, 79 Christianity: Godot as Christlike, 26, 47; intellectual context, 47–54; theology, 26, 29, 34, 35, 47, 53, 75; three attributes of God, 52–53. See also Bible Classic Stage Company (New York City), 104–5 The Clowns (film), 75 Club d’Essai de la Radio (Paris), 81 Cluchey, Rick, 19, 85, 88, 91, 92 Clurman, Harold, 14 Coconut Grove Playhouse (Miami), 84 Cohn, Ruby, 13, 14, 15, 75, 87 Colgan, Micjael, 20 Collected Poems (Larkin), 24 Comedy: clownishness, 31, 37, 73, 74–75; Irish “tramp comedy,” 77–78; scatological humor, 34, 76; slap stick, 43, 45, 75; tragicomedy, 70–72, 78–79 Company B Belvoir (Sydney), 106–7 Company (Johannesburg), 89 Connemara (Ireland), 36 Context: absence, 24–25, 27, 35, 44, 52, 53, 56, 63; absurdism, 58–60, 72–77; allegorical equation, 24, 31, 54, 57, 59, 73, 124, 129; depersonalization, 31–32; dominance/submission, 30, 31, 72, 88; existential, 54–58; exploitation, 30–31, 42, 65; intellectual, 47–67; mutability, 37; philosophy, 41–43, 60–67; sadism, 41, 42, 101; satire, 34, 77; theology, 26, 29, 34, 35, 47, 53, 75;

159

verbal nonsense, 73, 75–77. See also Comedy; Controversy Controversy: Alfred Jarry’s absurdism, 76; Beckett estate production control, 104, 106–9; existential context, 24, 54; all-female cast members, 93–94, 96; first theatrical performance, 81; mixed-race production, 89–90; physicallyimpaired cast members, 103; television productions, 21 Corey, Irwin, 34 Courtyard Playhouse (Greenwich Village), 99 Criterion Theatre (London), 83 Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett (Knowlson), 14, 89 Darwin, Charles, 60, 61 Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Stories (Tolstoy), 59–60 Denver Center Theater Company, 93 Descartes, René, 61, 62 Designers: Ballagh, Robert, 96; Branson, J., 103; Brocquy, Louis le, 92, 96; Burrett, Alan, 96; Corral, Santiago del, 97; Culshaw, Bernard, 90; Dudley, William, 91; Giacometti, Alberto, 86, 102; Henrioud, Matias, 88; Hernandez, Riccardo, 105; Holder, Donald, 105; Jarman, Derek, 97; Laug, Edouard, 101; Lee, Franne, 107; Lee, Ming Cho, 104; McGuinness, Norah, 87; McLane, Derek, 101; Monloup, Hubert, 87; Morris, Madeleine, 97; O’Brien, Timothy, 86; Pritchard, Laura, 95; Ritman, William, 87; Starowieyskya, Ewa, 102; Venza, Jac, 19; Wagner, Robin, 85; Walton, Tony, 93; Zambrano, Laura, 99 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Hume), 61 Didi. See Vladimir, performers

160

INDEX

Directing Beckett (Oppenheim), 91 Directors: Adamson, Eve, 191; Adrien, Philippe, 99, 100; Andries, Daniel, 97; Armfield, Neil, 106, 107; Asmus, Walter, 16, 20, 88, 90, 91, 92, 96, 102; Barrault, JeanLouis, 87; Bedford, Brian, 104; Belgrader, Andrei, 104; Benditt, Alan, 99; Berghof, Herbert, 18, 84–85, 98; Blair, Les, 97; Blau, Herbert, 85; Blin, Roger, 14, 81, 85, 87, 90; Boussagol, Bruno, 96; Brassard, André, 97; Campbell, Ken, 90; Cluchey, Rick, 19, 85, 88, 91, 92; Cotter, Sean, 87; Duckworth, Colin, 14, 105–6; Forrell, Lisa, 100; Francis, Benjy, 89; Glenville, Peter, 82; Hall, Peter, 82, 84, 102, 103; Howarth, Donald, 89; Hughs, Doug, 101; Johnson, Jan, 20; Jordan, Neil, 20; Kerbrat, Patrice, 101; Kochheim, Philip, 108; Lehane, Pearse, 21; Libera, Antoni, 102; LindsayHogg, Michael, 20, 21; London, Katie, 103; Maggio, Michael, 105; Mamet, David, 20; Manim, Mannie, 89; Manso, Leonor, 102; Marijnen, Franz, 97; McNamara, Robert, 97; McWhinnie, Donald, 19, 86; Mendel, Deryk, 86, 87; Minghella, Anthony, 20, 21, 40; Mylar, Randal, 93; Nichols, Mike, 92; Niece, Brian, 107; Ninagawa, Yukio, 100; Page, Anthony, 86; Polanski, Roman, 18; Reilly, John, 20; Reisz, Karel, 20; Ronan, Ilan, 91; Rudman, Michael, 91; Schneider, Alan, 18–19, 84, 86, 87; Serreau, Jean-Marie, 86; Simpson, Alan, 82, 84; Sofer, Andrew, 94; Sontag, Susan, 98–99; Stroux, Karl Heinz, 82; Sullivan, J.R., 103; Thacker, David, 95; Trives, Trino Martinez, 83; Webb, Tim,

95; Wheeler, David, 101; Zinoman, Joy, 104 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 54 Dreyfus, Hubert, 66 Dubliners, Waiting for Godot (Joyce), 27 Dublin Theatre Festival, 96 Dutch National Theatre (Holland), 97–98 Edmondson, Ad, 96 Efendi Productions (London), 100 Eliot, T. S., 24 “Enduring Saturday” (Burgess), 52 Engels, Friedrich, 61 Esperando a Godot (Spanish premiere), 84 Esslin, Martin, 58, 73, 85 Estragon, performers: Abu-Warda, Youssuf, 91; Alderton, John, 91; André, Bert, 97; Armacost, Brad, 105; Bailey, Mary, 107; Balmer, Jean-Francois, 20, 92; Barlow, Jonathan, 90; Beddard, Jamie, 103; Berry, Etienne, 86; Brando, Marlon, 82; Byrne, Austin, 84; Caravaca, Eric, 99, 100; Clark, Oliver, 87; Contreras, Patricio, 102; Cullen, Max, 106–7; Demarle, Philippe, 95; Drewry, Mark, 95; Emori, To’oru, 100; Epstein, Alvin, 101; Eyraud, Marc, 87; French, Arthur, 98; Girard, Remy, 97; Griffin, Donald, 104; Held, Lawrence, 19, 91, 92; Hessling, Hans, 82; Kamil, Amos, 95; Kingsley, Ben, 102; Lahr, Bert, 18, 84, 85; Latour, Pierre, 81; Lehman, Ross, 105; Lynch, Alfred, 86; Malikyan, Kevork, 100; Maréchal, Marcel, 101; Mari-ya, Tomoko, 100; McCann, Donal, 87; McGovern, Barry, 92; Midori, Mako, 100; Moreland, Manton, 85; Mostel, Zero, 19, 86; Murphey, Johnny, 20, 96, 102, 103;

INDEX

161

Murphy, Johnny, 102; Ntshona, Winston, 89; Orzechowski, Slawomir, 102; Ouimette, Stephen, 104; Peacock, Treavor, 90; Pendleton, Austin, 90; Pincus, Warren, 87; Price, Paul B., 87; Richardson, Sir Ralph, 82; Roussillon, Jean-Paul, 90; Smith, Craig, 101; Spinella, Stephen, 101; Tasse, James, 103; Thoreson, Howard, 99; Turturro, John, 105; Wigger, Stefan, 86, 88; Williams, Robin, 92; Woodthorpe, Peter, 19, 83, 84, 86 Ethel Barrymore Theatre (New York City), 85 Existentialism (Sartre), 55

God’s Funeral (Wilson), 60 Gogo. See Estragon, performers Gontarski, S. E., 48, 97 Goodman Theatre (Chicago), 105 Gordon, Lois, 66 Go West (Keaton film), 71 Greenwich Street Theatre (New York), 97 Group Areas Act (Johannesburg), 89 Grove Companion to Samuel Beckett (Ackerley and Gontarski), 48 Grove Press, 14, 15, 16, 17, 86 Guardian (newspaper), 103 A Guide to Heidegger’s Being and Time (King), 66 Guilbert, Ann, 93

Faber and Faber, 14, 15, 16, 92, 105 Faulkner, William, 44 Fellini, Federico, 75 Festival des Chantiers de Blaye (Paris), 100 “The Few Words about Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot” (Saroyan), 18 Films for the Humanities (Princeton, New Jersey), 86 Finnegans Wake (Joyce), 24, 34 Fletcher, John, 79 Fraternelli Clowns, 31, 74 French Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Francais, 93 Freud, Sigmund, 61 Freudian theory, 66 Friedrich, Caspar David, 89 Fugard, Athol, 89

Haarlemse Toneelschuur (Holland), 93 Haifa Municipal Theatre (Israel), 91 Hardy, Oliver, 28, 37, 71–72 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm, 61, 65 Heidegger, Martin, 55, 66 Heller, Zöe, 96 His Trysting Place (Chaplin film), 37 Hobson, Harold, 83 “The Humanism of Existentialism” (Sartre), 55 Hume, David, 61

Gate Theatre (Dublin), 20, 92, 96, 103 Gautier, Marthe, 81 The General (Keaton film), 70 Genet, Jean, 73, 85 Geulinex, Arnold, 62–63 Gielgud, John, 20 Global Village (New York), 20 Godex Has Come (Mitrache), 97

The Independent on Sunday (newspaper), 97 International Theatre Festival (Chicago), 96 Ionesco, Eugene, 73, 76, 77 “I Remember, I Remember” (Larkin), 24 Irish Times (newspaper), 95 Irons, Jeremy, 20, 21 Island Theatre Workshop (Martha’s Vineyard), 94 “Jabberwocky” (Carroll), 34, 75 Jancar, Draco, 97 Jarry, Alfred, 76

162

INDEX

Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre (New York City), 101 John Golden Theatre (New York City), 84 John Jay School of Criminal Justice (New York City), 102 Jouanneau, Jöel, 95 Journal of Beckett Studies 2.2 (Knowlson), 63 Joyce, James, 24, 27, 34, 47. See also individual works Joy of Motion Dance Theatre (Washington, D.C.), 97 Jung, Karl, 64 Kael, Pauline, 71 Kafka, Franz, 59, 60 Kelly, Emmet, 75 Kenner, Hugh, 63 Kerr, Walter, 37, 71, 72 King, Magda, 66 The Knight of the Burning Pestle (Beaumont), 32–33 Knowlson, James, 14, 15–16, 17, 88, 89, 102 Ko’ogami, Sho’oji, 100 Kumla, Sweden, 20 Larkin, Philip, 23–24 Laurel, Stan, 28, 37, 71–72 Licensing Act of 1737, 14 Lieberson, Goddard, 18 Lincoln Center (New York), 92–93, 102 Lindon, Iréne, 105 Lindon, Jérôme, 14, 96 Long Wharf Theatre (New Haven), 90 Lord Chamberlain’s Office, 14, 15, 82 Lucky, performers: Bateson, Timothy, 19, 83; Berdaxagar, Alicia, 102; Brennan, Stephen, 20, 92, 96, 102; Brown, Kennedy, 101; Carroll, Thomas Joseph, 105; Cave, Des, 87; Donnelly, Donal, 84; Dupuis,

Jean-Michel, 101; Epstein, Alvin, 18, 19, 86, 101; Evett, Benjamin, 101; Gleason, Stephen, 99; Herm, Klaus, 87, 88; Hicks, Greg, 102; Holder, Geoffrey, 85; Holland, Anthony, 87; Irwin, Bill, 92, 93, 101; Kinevane, Pat, 103; Konrad, Sebastian, 102; Lane, Rae, 95; Le Marquand, Steve, 107; MacGowran, Jack, 17–18, 19, 22, 26, 86; Malet, Arthur, 84; Mandell, Alan, 19, 85, 92; Martin, Alexis, 97; Martin, Jean, 81, 86; Maurer, Friedrich, 82; McDonald, Tim, 104; McGee, Noel, 95; Melki, Claude, 95; Milin, Gildas, 99, 100; Miller, J. Pat, 91; Nees, Hugh, 104; O’Hare, Dennis, 101; O’Shea, Milo, 90; Perez, Lazaro, 105; Piccolo, Peter, 90; Polanski, Roman, 20, 92; Riquier, Georges, 90; Robin, Michel, 87; Root, Jonathan, 107; Rosqui, Tom, 87; Ryan, Christopher, 97; Sessions, John, 90; Spore, Richard, 105; Stone, Dan, 87; Tavori, Doron, 91; Waldhorn, Gary, 90; Weidman, Charles, 107; Wight, Peter, 91 Lüttringhausen prison (Wuppertal), 82 Lyric Players Theatre (Belfast), 95 The Lyttleton Theatre (London), 91 Marion, Brigitte, 96 Market Theatre (Johannesburg), 89 Marx, Groucho, 34 Marx, Karl, 35, 65 Marx and Engels: Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy (Feuer), 65 Marxism and Literature (Williams), 65 Marxist theory, 65 Max Wall’s Beckett (London Weekend Television South Bank Show), 90 Mayall, Rik, 96–97

INDEX McGurk, Tom, 21 McMillan, Dougald, 15, 16, 89 Melbourne French Theatre (Australia), 105–6 Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Jung), 64 The Metamorphosis (Kafka), 59 Meyerburg, Michael, 84 Mill, John Stuart, 61 Miller, Arthur, 79 Milton, John, 62 Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, 103 Minuit, Les Éditions de, 13, 14, 15 Mitrache, Corneliu, 97 Modern Times (Chaplin film), 70 Moloney, Alan, 20 Moore, Julianne, 20 Mossbach Theatre Company (New York), 97 MTV (music television network), 96 Munk, Erika, 98, 99 “Murphy, Beckett, Geulinex, God” (Wood), 63 Murphy, Peter, 105 Murray, Rupert, 92 The Music Box (Laurel and Hardy film), 71 “The Myth of Sisyphus” (Camus), 58 National Endowment for the Humanities, 19, 20, 92 National Theatre (London), 91 The Navigator (Keaton film), 70 Niece, Stephanie, 107 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 54, 55, 65 Nine Plays of the Modern Theater (Clurman), 14 No Author Better Served (Harmon), 84 No Exit (Sartre), 40 Nouche, Natacha, 96 O’Brien, Eoin, 36 Observer (newspaper), 83 O’Casey, Sean, 72

163

Odéon-Theatre de France, 85–86, 90, 102 Old Vic (London), 90, 102–3 O’Neill, Eugene, 79 Open Space (London), 85 Oppenheim, Lois, 91, 99 Origin of the Species (Darwin), 60 Osterkamp, Frau, 93 Paradise Lost (Milton), 62 Particular Pleasures: Being a Personal Record of Some Varied Arts and Many Different Artists (Priestley), 74 Pavlov, Anton, 45 PBS (Public Prodcasting Service), 20, 21 People’s Branch Theatre (Nashville), 107–8 Pequeño Teatro de Madrid, 83 Performances: All-black productions, 85, 98; all-female cast, 93–94, 96, 100–101, 107–8; American premiere, 84–85; bilingual, 105–6; Buenos Aires, 102; cancelled, 84, 96, 108; Chinese premiere, 92; Czekajcac Na Godota (Polish version), 102; first theatrical, 81; German premiere, 82; Irish premiere, 84; London premiere, 82–83; Man wartet auf Godot (Lüttringhausen prison), 82; mixed-race, 89–90; Ngundalelah Godotgai (Aboriginal version), 103; Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, 98–99; Schiller-Theater (Berlin), 86–89; Spanish premiere, 83–84; Sydney, Australia, 103; television versions, 86, 92; Warten auf Godot (German version), 86–88. See also individual theatres Phenomenology of Spirit (Hegel), 65 Philaster, or Love Lies a-Bleeding (Beaumont and Fletcher), 79 Pike Theatre (Dublin), 82, 84

164

INDEX

Pinter, Harold, 20 Pirandello, Luigi, 33 Plaut, Fred, 18 Playhouse (Melbourne), 103 The Portable Nietzsche (Nietzsche), 65 Post-war British Theatre Criticism (Elsom), 23 Pozzo, performers: Abraham, F. Murray, 92; Airaldi, Remo, 101; Alyward, John, 101; Blendick, James, 104; Blin, Roger, 81; Bordo, Ed, 87; Bourgois, Jean-Jacques, 86; Bryggman, Larry, 87; Bull, Peter, 83; Chaumette, Francois, 90; Chioroni, Matt, 107; Cluchey, Rick, 19, 85, 88, 91, 92; Crann, Don, 90; Curran, Paul, 86; Dubreuil, Cyril, 99, 100; Egan, Michael, 90; Felton, Felix, 19; Ferency, Adam, 102; FitzGerald, Nigel, 84; Flynn, Bill, 90; Franck, Walter, 82; Genece, Abner, 101; Guerberof, Miguel, 102; Held, Martin, 88; Hirsch, Robert, 101; Ingram, Rex, 85; Jorris, JeanPierre, 20, 92; Kasznar, Kurt, 18, 19, 85, 86; Kelly, Eamon, 87; Koca, Bodgan, 107; Lloyd, Christopher, 105; Maguire, Oliver, 95; McGrath, George, 99; Meffre, Armand, 87; Millette, Jean-Loius, 97; Minetti, Bernhard, 87; Mooney, Daniel, 103; Morris, Wolfe, 90; Quilley, Denis, 102; Raddatz, Karl, 88; Rhoze, Tim Edward, 105; Rigsby, Terence, 91; Roodner, Uri, 103; Ruche, Christian, 95; Sanford, Alan, 102; Smart, J. Scott, 84; Stanford, Alan, 20, 92, 96, 103; Thorpe, Bud, 16, 19, 91, 92; Tolaydo, Michael, 104; Toren, Ilan, 91; Welland, Colin, 91; Wilson, Sarah, 95; Winter, Edward, 87 Priestley, J. B., 74 Prince, Eric, 106–7 Proust, Marcel, 63

Queen’s Theatre (London), 96–97 Rabelais and His World (Bakhtin), 43 Radio Telefis Éireann (Dublin), 20, 96 Reading Godot (Gordon), 66 Remy Bummpo Productions (Chicago), 105 Rhinoceros (Ionesco), 77 Riverside Studios (London), 16, 91 Robbe-Grillet, Alain, 81 Rosset, Barney, 19, 87 Round House Theatre (London), 90 Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (Stern), 65–66 Royal Court Theatre (London), 85–86, 89 St. John Butler, Lance, 66 Samuel Beckett: A Critical Study (Kenner), 63 Samuel Beckett and the Meaning of Being: A Study in Ontological Parable (St. John Butler), 66 Samuel Beckett: A New Approach: A Study of the Novels and Plays (Barnard), 66 Samuel Beckett Festival in the Hague, 97 “Samuel Beckett’s Production,” 90 Samuel Beckett’s Theatre: Life Journeys (Worth), 76 Samuel Beckett Symposium: After Beckett/d’après Beckett, 106–7 Samuel Beckett: The Complete Dramatic Works (Faber and Faber), 15 Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot: A Casebook (Cohn), 15 Samuel French, Inc., 107 San Francisco Actors Workshop, 85 San Francisco Chronicle (newspaper), 85

INDEX San Quentin Drama Workshop, 16, 19, 91, 92, 97 San Quentin Prison (California), 20, 85 Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, 98–99 Saroyan, William, 18, 84 Sartor Resartus (Carlyle), 43 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 27, 40, 54, 55–57, 73 “Sartre’s Being and Nothingness and Beckett” (St. John Butler), 66 Scena Theatre (Washington, D.C.), 97 Schiller-Theater (Berlin), 16, 19, 86–89, 90, 91, 92 Schneider, Alan, 18–19, 84, 86, 87 Scholsspark-Theater (Berlin), 82 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 64 Seattle Repertory Theatre, 101 Seven Plays of the Modern Theater (Clurman), 14 Shanghai Drama Institute, 92 Shaw Festival (Milwaukee), 103 Shelley, Percy, 29 Sheridan Square Playhouse (Greenwich Village), 87 The Silent Clowns (Kerr), 37, 71 Six Characters in Search of an Author (Pirandello), 33 Sizwe Bansai Is Dead (Fugard), 89 Skelton, Red, 75 Skinner, B. F., 45 Smithsonian Video Library (Smithsonian Institution Press), 19 The Sound and the Fury (Faulkner), 44 Spielschar der Landstrasse Wuppertal (Players’ Troupe of the Open Road in Wuppertal), 82 Stakeout at Godot’s (Jancar), 97 Stratford Shakespeare Festival (Canada), 22 Stern, Robert, 65–66 Stoppard, Tom, 18 Studio Theatre (Washington, D.C.), 104

165

Sunday Times (newspaper), 83 Swain, Mack, 37 Swedish Academy, 59 Sydney Morning Herald (newspaper), 106, 107 Sydney Olympics Festival of the Dreaming, 103 Synge, John Millington, 77, 79 Teatr Dramatyczny (Warsaw), 102 Theaters Act of 1968, 15 Théâtre de Babylone (Paris), 81 Théâtre de la Tempête (Paris), 99, 100 Théâtre des Amandiers (Paris), 95–96 Théâtre du Nouveau Monde (Montreal), 97 Théâtre du Rond-Pont des ChampsElysées (Paris), 101 The Theatre of the Absurd (Esslin), 58, 73, 85 Théâtre Récamier (Paris), 87 The Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett (Knowlson and McMillan), 15, 89 The Three Sisters (Chekhov), 39 Times Literary Supplement (magazine), 83, 94 Tisbury Amphitheatre (Martha’s Vineyard), 94–95 “To a Skylark” (Shelley), 29 Tokyo Art Theatre, 100–101 Tokyo Metropolitan Arts Festival, 100 Tolstoy, Leo, 59–60 Tom Patterson Theatre (Ontario), 104 Too Good to be True (Shaw), 103 Tophoven, Elmar, 15 Tottering Bipeds, 103 Towed in the Hole (Laurel and Hardy film), 71 The Tramp (Chaplin film), 70 The Trial (Kafka), 59 Tynan, Kenneth, 23, 71–72, 83 Tyrann productions, 20

166

INDEX

Ubu Roi (Jarry), 76 United States Information Service, 85 Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 83 Urgent Copy; Literary Studies (Burgess), 52 Van Veggel, J. M., 93 Verlag, S. Fischer, 108 Victory Gardens Theatre (Chicago), 105 Visual Press (University of Maryland), 19, 92 Vladimir, performers: Arditi, Pierre, 101; Audivert, Pompeyo, 102; Aumont, Michel, 90; Benditt, Alan, 99; Berlinsky, Harris, 101; Bollmann, Horst, 86, 88; Burden, Hugh, 83; Byrd, David, 87; Charney, Jordan, 87; Chouinard, Normand, 97; Cluchey, Rick, 19, 85, 88, 91, 92; Daneman, Paul, 83; De Shields, Andre, 105; Ewell, Tom, 84, 87; Forsythe, Henderson, 87; Gaden, John, 106; Gajewski, Jaroslaw, 102; Geidt, Jeremy, 101; Guinness, Alec, 82; Hickey, Tom, 92; Howard, Alan, 102; Hyman, Earle, 85, 98; Ichihara, Etsuko, 100; Irwin, Bill, 100; Jones, Thomas W., II, 104; Kani, John, 89; Keaton, Buster, 70–71, 82; Kelly, Dermont, 84; Khouri, Makhram, 91; Kishline, John, 103; Levine, Steve, 95; Littleon, Jenny, 107; Marshall, E.G., 18, 85; Martin, Steve, 92; McCamus, Tom, 104; McCowen, Alec, 91; McElhinney, Ian, 95; McGovern, Barry, 20, 92, 96, 102, 103; Meredith, Burgess, 19, 86; Nishimura, Ko’o, 100; O’Toole, Peter, 18, 87; Petitjean, Eric, 100; Putzulz,

Bruno, 99; Raimbourg, Lucien, 81, 86, 87; Rashleigh, Andy, 90; Royaards, Jules, 97; Rufus, 20, 92; Sawalha, Nadim, 100; Schieske, Alfred, 82; Shalhoub, Tony, 105; Shiraishi, Kazuko, 100; Startin, Simon, 103; Vann, Marc, 105; Wall, Max, 90; Warrilow, David, 95; Waterson, Sam, 90; Williamson, Nicol, 86 Waiting for Beckett (biographical video), 20 Waiting for Godot: audio recordings of, 17–22; blocking, 36–37; copyrights, 108–9; costumes, 18, 74, 75, 88, 90, 93, 100–101, 105, 107; handwritten manuscript of, 13; monetary units in, 15; music, 82–83, 84, 94, 95, 99, 101, 104, 106–7, 109; paintings, 26, 69–70, 75, 89; plight of the dead motifs, 39–40; “pure theater” and, 73, 74; revised editions of, 15–17; setting of, 18, 19, 20–21, 23; stage design, 17, 21, 40, 88, 93, 95, 97, 101, 103, 104; suicide contemplation, 2, 8, 12, 30; television version, 18–19; time, conception of, 10–11, 23, 27, 44; video recordings of, 17–22; Wartestelle (waiting period), 17. See also Context; Performances “Waiting for Godot as Political Theatre” (Ronin), 91 “Waiting for Godot in San Quentin” (documentary), 20 The Waste Land (Eliot), 24 The Well of the Saints (Synge), 77–78 Williams, Raymond, 65 Williams, Tennessee, 79, 84 The Will to Power (Nietzsche), 65 Wilson, A. N., 60–61 Winchell, Walter, 84 WNTA (television station), 19, 86

INDEX Wood, Rupert, 63 The World as Will and Representation (Schopenhauer), 64 World War II, 54, 58 Worth, Katharine, 76

167

Young, Jordan R., 17–18 The Young Ones (television series), 96 Young Vic Theatre (London), 90, 95 Zeifman, Hersh, 15

About the Author WILLIAM HUTCHINGS in a Professor of English at the University of

Alabama, Birmingham.