First performed in
Paris in 1953, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting
for Godot is one of those cultural phenomena that can be endlessly
referenced, adapted and mimicked by just about anybody and yet none of its
original power or intent is lost. Essentially the story of two displaced
people, tramps we could suppose, it is, famously, a play where ‘nothing’
happens, twice over. Initially opening to hostile reviews in London in 1955,
Beckett’s play went on to break the mould of the “star-actor’s theatre,” and
pushed the boundaries of what could be achieved in playwriting and in theatre,
both linguistically, performatively, in a script, as well as “the expectation
of success from stardom.”
The story of
Vladimir and Estragon, Waiting for Godot
is a perhaps a kind of Groundhog Day
for these two tramps, an endless succession of phrases and ideas, actions,
beats and moments, that never really seem to mean anything at all. And yet
amongst this nothingness, there is a kind of warmth, a kind of shared humanity
between us and Vladimir
