Waiting for Godot facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Waiting for Godot |
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En attendant Godot, staging by Otomar Krejca, Avignon Festival, 1978
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| Written by | Samuel Beckett |
| Characters | Vladimir Estragon Pozzo Lucky A Boy |
| Mute | Godot |
| Date of premiere | 5 January 1953 |
| Place of premiere | Théâtre de Babylone, Paris |
| Original language | French |
| Genre | Tragicomedy (play) |
Waiting for Godot ( GOD-oh) is a play by Samuel Beckett in which two characters, Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo), engage in a variety of discussions and encounters while awaiting the titular Godot, who never arrives. Waiting for Godot is Beckett's translation of his own original French-language play, En attendant Godot, and is subtitled (in English only) "a tragicomedy in two acts".
The original French text was composed between 9 October 1948 and 29 January 1949. The premiere, directed by Roger Blin, was on 5 January 1953 at the Théâtre de Babylone, Paris. The English-language version premiered in London in 1955. In a poll conducted by the British Royal National Theatre in 1998/99, it was voted the "most significant English-language play of the 20th century".
Setting
There is only one scene throughout both acts. Two men are waiting on a country road by a tree. The men are of unspecified origin, though it is clear that they are not English by nationality. In the second, a few leaves have appeared despite the script specifying that it is the next day. The minimal description calls to mind "the idea of the lieu vague, a location which should not be particularised".
Place in Beckett's work
Although not his favourite amongst his plays, Waiting for Godot was the work which brought Beckett fame and financial stability and as such it always held a special place in his affections. "When the manuscript and rare books dealer, Henry Wenning, asked him if he could sell the original French manuscript for him, Beckett replied: 'Rightly or wrongly have decided not to let Godot go yet. Neither sentimental nor financial, probably peak of market now and never such an offer. Can't explain.' "
Related works
- Racine's Bérénice is a play "in which nothing happens for five acts." In the preface to this play Racine writes: "All creativity consists in making something out of nothing." Beckett was an avid scholar of the 17th-century playwright and lectured on him during his time at Trinity. "Essential to the static quality of a Racine play is the pairing of characters to talk at length to each other."
- The title character of Balzac's 1851 play Mercadet is waiting for financial salvation from his never-seen business partner, Godeau. Although Beckett was familiar with Balzac's prose, he insisted that he learned of the play after finishing Waiting for Godot.
- Many critics regard the protagonists in Beckett's novel Mercier and Camier as prototypes of Vladimir and Estragon. "If you want to find the origins of Godot", he told Colin Duckworth once, "look at Murphy." Here we see the agonised protagonist yearning for self-knowledge, or at least complete freedom of thought at any cost, and the dichotomy and interaction of mind and body. Mercier and Camier wander aimlessly about a boggy, rain-soaked island that, although not explicitly named, is Beckett's native Ireland. They speak convoluted dialogues similar to Vladimir and Estragon's, joke about the weather and chat in pubs, while the purpose of their odyssey is never made clear. The waiting in Godot is the wandering of the novel. "There are large chunks of dialogue which he later transferred directly into Godot."
- Waiting for Godot has been compared with Tom Stoppard's 1966 play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Parallels include two central characters who appear to be aspects of a single character and whose lives are dependent on outside forces over which they have little control. There are also plot parallels, the act of waiting as a significant element of the play, during the waiting, the characters pass time by playing Questions, impersonating other characters, at times repeatedly interrupting each other while at other times remaining silent for long periods.
- The 1991 West End production (see above), inspired Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson to develop Bottom, which Mayall described as a "cruder cousin" to Godot.
See also
In Spanish: Esperando a Godot para niños
- Denis Johnston, "Waiting with Beckett", Irish Writing, Spring 1956, pp. 23–28.
- Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
- Two-hander
- Unseen character
