Short & Sweet Treats discussion

Let's discuss Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett.

"A seminal work of twentieth century drama, Waiting for Godot was Samuel Beckett's first professionally produced play. It opened in Paris in 1953 at the tiny Left Bank Theatre de Babylone, and has since become a cornerstone of twentieth-century theater. The story line revolves around two seemingly homeless men waiting for someone or something named Godot. Vladimir and Estragon wait near a tree on a barren stretch of road, inhabiting a drama spun from their own consciousness. The result is a comical wordplay of poetry, dreamscapes, and nonsense, which has been interpreted as a somber summation of mankind's inexhaustible search for meaning. Beckett's language pioneered an expressionistic minimalism that captured the existentialism of post-World War II Europe. His play remains one of the most magical and beautiful allegories of our time."

I'm just starting this little gem, and I'm going to go back, slow down, and read it at one sitting. How I'd love to have seen Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen do this on Broadway! Just this little snippet on youtube is so charming and touching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUXtz...

These pictures will be in my mind while I read :-)

Thanks for the post! I've never seen this performed live Julia; so I think I'm missing it, at least somewhat. This is one that's harder to "get" just reading it, I'm guessing.

For sure, Greg!! There's a good version (with Turkish subtitles) on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Va9x...

It just makes me wish more and more that I could have seen the McKellen/Stewart version :-)

BTW, interesting NY Times article on how to pronounce "GODOT". Seems like "god-OH" tends to win out. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/the...

"Mr. Lahr rejected the interpretation that Godot was simply a stand-in for God, an idea he said was too easily conjured up by the pronunciation GOD-oh. When his father, the actor Bert Lahr, played Estragon in the original American productions of “Waiting for Godot,” Mr. Lahr said “god-OH” was used. “It keeps it open-ended and more painful, almost, as if there’s nothing out there,” Mr. Lahr said. “Which there isn’t, in Beckett’s vision.”

Well...I didn't mind this story but I was definitely confused. Not so much my who is "Godot" because I don't think that is actually relevant to the story. What confused me were the characters and who they were. Obviously, these were four homeless individuals...or at least, I'm sure that Estragon and Vladimir were. But were they mentally ill which is quite common in the homeless population? Also, I'm curious whether or not they were just great friends, or if they also had a romantic relationship. I can't imagine being in a "friendship" where I constantly wondered if we'd be better of without each other. That sounds more like the conflict of a couple to me. But maybe I'm reading too much into this.

I just finished my "straight through" read, and now "get" that this is a surreal, existentialist play which questions the meaning of life. It's identified as a "tragi-comedy". I found an excellent essay here: http://www.samuel-beckett.net/L2BeckE...

The entire essay is worth reading, but the first paragraph offers the core insight:

"The purpose of human life is an unanswerable question. It seems impossible to find an answer because we don't know where to begin looking or whom to ask. Existence, to us, seems to be something imposed upon us by an unknown force. There is no apparent meaning to it, and yet we suffer as a result of it. The world seems utterly chaotic. We therefore try to impose meaning on it through pattern and fabricated purposes to distract ourselves from the fact that our situation is hopelessly unfathomable. Waiting for Godot is a play that captures this feeling and view of the world, and characterizes it with archetypes that symbolize humanity and its behavior when faced with this knowledge. According to the play, a human being's life is totally dependent on chance, and, by extension, time is meaningless; therefore, a human's life is also meaningless, and the realization of this drives humans to rely on nebulous, outside forces, which may be real or not, for order and direction."

Later in the essay, the author says:

"To impose pattern and meaning on their world, humans will rely on nebulous outside forces for relief and distraction from their predicament. This is the only thing that can keep them going. Thus, in the play, Godot is symbolic of such an outside force, which seems to be silent and uncaring. Even so, he is still a pattern, and he infuses the two desperate tramps with a purpose to their absurd lives. By imposing pattern on chaos, Vladimir and Estragon achieve some degree of meaning. In this case, the pattern is waiting. Vladimir, in his philosophical soliloquy while contemplating whether or not to help Pozzo in Act II, declares, "What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in this immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come-". An illusion of salvation is needed to cope with a meaningless life. Godot is that illusion. Therefore we see that because of all the aforementioned factors, that life is based on chance, that time is meaningless, that human life is meaningless, humans are driven to invent or rely on such "Godots," otherwise they would perish."

One of the issues raised is why Vladimir and Estragon don't just find a rope and hang themselves. The great existentialist writer, Albert Camus, addressed this same issue in "The Myth of Sisyphus". He argues that we, like Sisyphus (and thus like Vladimir and Estragon), would rather continue rolling our rocks uphill (or waiting for Godot) rather than fall into oblivion. For an existentialist, with no belief in an afterlife, existence itself becomes so precious that we do not want to end the life we know, regardless of how absurd.

This is the type of theater I love, since it requires thinking beneath the surface (much like J.B. by Archibald MacLeish and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard.)

I just watched the 10 minute scene from the version on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGQTo...

It's Lucky's monologue and enough to break my heart. I can see why this play hasn't had many posts--but oh! Stephen Brennan playing Lucky is amazing as are the others in this Michael Lindsay-Hogg film. I can only find it on youtube with Turkish and Spanish subtitles!

I have both a physical copy and an audiobook? How do you suggest I should read it? I'm leaning towards the audiobook as I hear it's a play? And the recording is only two hours long.

I needed to read it, since it can be a challenge--and THEN watch the youtube, which is excellent (it's easy to ignore the Turkish subtitles). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Va9x...

I do think plays are meant to be watched, and I'm not sure why they won't release a DVD of McKellen and Stewart doing it. However, the Irish actors in the Michael Lindsay-Hogg production are wonderful.

Ok, thank you. I'll definitely check out the youtube video as well :-)

Ok, thank you. I'll definitely check out the youtube video as well :-)

I read this for a History course and I have to say it is an interesting play as you can read it so many times and get more and more from it.

This play paints an unflattering picture of humanism.