Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts 1st Edition

After reading the screenplay of Waiting for Godot I did many things. I laughed, I scratched my head, I wondered who this Godot was and I tried to find the elusive plot and meaning of it all. In all, maybe it was Mr. Beckett's primary intention to have all the theater goers go mad!

The essence of this two act play revolves around two longtime friends by the names of Vladimir and Estragon who are in search of a character called Godot. The reader or theater goer never really knows who Godot is. Is it the search for God? Could be but who knows. Godot could represent anyone or anything.

Beckett gives the impression that Vladimir and Estragon are hobo-like characters who wear bowler's hats and carry on a most nonsensical and repetitious continuing conversation. In fact most of their dialogue is very much like Abbot and Costello's Who's On First. The dialogue goes in circles much like Abbot and Costello.
Also another comedy team comes to mind as I read on in what can only be called a farce of a play dominated by absurd allusions. As Vladimir and Estragon continue with their absurd conversations along comes two other characters which add more speculation into what seems to be like the rabbit in Alice In Wonderland added confusion and wonderment in that rather absurd tale. These characters named Pozzo and Lucky add their own comedic scheme to this rather confusing and jumbled tale. When the seemingly intellectually challenged Lucky, who has the IQ of Rocky Balboa, breaks into an outright intellectual diatribe it made me laugh so hard like I remember when I watched old Laurel and Hardy routines as a young boy.

The play's meaning and plot is an open book. It can mean anything to anybody. It is full of symbolism and begs for a solid debate. To me it represents life and that life in and of itself at times lacks meaning, shows comedy and can be disappointing and hard to really understand. After seeing this play on February 2, 2014 on Broadway I can compare the play to one TV Series that being "Seinfeld" and the classic movie titled "Groundhog's Day." These are the current comparisons but in the end this play represents a mystery for us to interpret. I'll stick with Groundhog's Day!!!

For some reason this play should probably be read and seen multiple times to gain what was in Beckett's mind. I can see why this play is considered a classic. It has all the elements of what the word classic is all about.

"Waiting for Godot" explores Existential philosophy in the form of an absurd, random play. Samuel Beckett uses the easy-to-understand format of two men waiting for their companion Godot to allude to the human condition through Existentialism. The play lacks any true plot (other than the waiting) and there isn't much character development (Vladimir and Estragon wait for Godot despite the fact that he stands them up every day). And while that would seem like a bad thing - all this waiting with zero outcome - isn't that exactly what we spend our whole lives doing? We wait in line, in traffic, for work to end, for a vacation, etc. Stunningly close to our everyday lives, "Waiting for Godot" is a maddening and confusing play that rings true for every reader

First, a word about editions. This edition of WAITING FOR GODOT, though with occasional changes of covers, has long been the standard edition of the play in English. It features Beckett's translation of the play in English, and nothing else. But in more recent copies of the play, Grove has inserted a card noting that in June of 2011 this edition will be replaced by a two one, which will feature the French original alongside Beckett's translation into English. Right now this edition is still available for a fraction of the cost of the new bilingual edition, but at some point soon it will apparently go out of print, and only the new edition of Waiting for Godot - Bilingual: A Bilingual Edition will be available. This new edition will also feature an introduction, which the current edition lacks.

Too many people forget that this is a PLAY, i.e., something that provides the words for actors on a stage. It is not primarily intended to be read in a book. Unfortunately, this is how most people experience the play, therefore depriving them of most of elements of the performance. Therefore, I am going to make a recommendation for a way of increasing the richness of your performance of the play.

Though an Irishman, Beckett originally wrote the play - as he did with almost all of his works - in French first and then later translated them himself into English (in contrast, Vladimir Nabokov after moving to the United States wrote his books in English, and then translated them into French and Russian, his wife doing the translations into German). The play was originally performed in Paris, while the English-language premiere took place in Ireland. The American debut was not on Broadway, but in Miami, Florida, with Bert Lahr and Tom Ewell.

Instead of merely reading the play, read it while listening to a recording of the original Broadway production of Waiting For Godot, which starred Bert Lahr (best known as the Cowardly Lion in THE WIZARD OF OZ) as Estragon and E. G. Marshall as Vladimir. While you still wouldn't get the visual dimension of the play, hearing the actors bring the characters to life adds new layers to the play that you would never get merely by reading it. Lahr was an unexpected choice to star in the play, given that he wasn't an actor so much as a vaudevillian comedian. His acting style was too over-the-top to be convincing in film (though perfect for the Cowardly Lion); I read somewhere - I don't recall where - that he was more like a cartoon character incarnated than a human. He nonetheless gives a marvelous performance here. Marshall was one of the most distinguished stage actors of his generation and more than holds his own with Lahr while acting as more the straight man.

If you listen to the recording while reading the book, the performance that will most come to life is that of Lucky. I'd read the play 2 or 3 times over the years and seen it once on the stage in which I now realize was a rather tame production, but had not really paid much attention to Lucky. His main contribution was a single, very long speech (not terribly unlike the long speech given by The Fireman in Ionesco's THE BALD SOPRANO in terms of length and its absurdity - a speech that I gave in a college performance of the play). Read on the page it can seem interesting and silly, but hearing the actor (though it wasn't indicated in the recording, Alvin Epstein played Lucky in the original Broadway production and it is almost certainly him here) perform the speech is revelatory. He doesn't say the words so much as shriek, yelp, gasp, bark, and screech them. Hearing Lucky's speech performed by a talented actor transforms your appreciation of both the speech and the play.

This is one of the truly great works of the 20th Century, one of the key plays making up what Martin Esslin dubbed The Theatre of the Absurd, but it is not best experienced by reading it on the page. Try to see it performed instead, or at bare minimum in the Bert Lahr/E. G. Marshall version noted above. You wouldn't think that you had experienced a Bob Dylan song merely by reading the lyrics, and so also you won't experience WAITING FOR GODOT unless you hear or see it performed.

Beckett's "Godot" is probably one of the most amazing and thought-provoking plays out there! Anyone interested in theater simply must read it! It's dark, it's depressing, it's funny, it's thought-provoking, and it belongs to the classics of existentialist theater. It's a phenomenal read, filled with eerie repetition as the two main characters simply cannot stop waiting for the mysterious Godot - and while waiting seems endlessly pointless, they are unable to stop waiting and leave.
Yet while I think this is a spectacular play (one of my personal favorites) it's also a highly intellectual one, so do not pick it up if all you want is a light melodrama.