Waiting for Godot

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/7/06 at 8:45pm

I'm reading this right now -- just taking a quick break between acts.

It's... weird as hell, and somehow I need to do an Aristotalian analysis of it, but that's besides the point. Regardless, the language is very beautiful.

I'm sure I'll have other things I want to open up to y'all to discuss and help me figure out as I finish and consider it better, but right now, I'm wondering what people who have seen/read/been in it make of Lucky's "tirade." He's got that long, three-page monologue with no punctuation, that reads in some places a bit like a word-association. I'm not sure what to think of it.

Updated On: 4/7/06 at 08:45 PM

[Katurian2]

Posted: 4/7/06 at 8:56pm

lol- That's the point. It is so freaking weird. I didn't really get it. Talk about abstract writing.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/7/06 at 9:01pm

Well, for the sake of my paper I am going to make myself get it. ... as much as it can be gotten, anyway.

Even thoguh I know absurdism/abstract work has parts that probably aren't meant to be gotten, but rather make their points formalistically and simply by being present, I always get frustrated and feel like "but it HAS to mean something!"

[Up In Lost]

Posted: 4/7/06 at 9:03pm

I understood it more when I saw it on stage. Sad thing? I saw it first, then read it.

[Katurian2]

Posted: 4/7/06 at 9:03pm

hehe- I really think that this play was written soley for the sake of being strange and weird. My friend thought that it had some sort of political allegory, and the main characters were waiting for action by the government. (Godot) I didn't get that. I thought that they were dead, but, hey, I was totally lost on this play.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/7/06 at 9:03pm

I understood it more when I saw it on stage. Sad thing? I saw it first, then read it.
What's wrong with that?

ETA -- being that I refuse to believe it's just there for the sake of making your head spin by being weird, and while I think political allegory is a definite possibility, I'm getting the feeling that it's about looking for identity and such -- existential. A search for meaning, perhaps.

Updated On: 4/7/06 at 09:03 PM

[BSoBW2]

Posted: 4/7/06 at 9:14pm

It's a lot like his other play - ENDGAME - which deals with cyclical life...however, each time a new round begins, something is different.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/7/06 at 9:19pm

I really like the way the relationship between Estragon and Vladimir is developed in the second act -- the way Vladimir has to take care of Estragon, and whatnot. It's almost kind of sweet. The opening, where it deals with "crawling back" and being alone, missing the person, but being happier, is very resonant.

[loudasthehelliwant]

Posted: 4/7/06 at 9:33pm

Woah. Amazing you should mention it, as we were totally talking about it in theatre class today. I was thinking of reading it. Maybe I'll pick it up soon, and then I'll be able to really join in on this thread.

[TheaterAddict7652]

Posted: 4/7/06 at 9:41pm

In my school drama class two years ago, the teacher split us into pairs and gave each pair one page from the script without telling us anything about the show, (except the basics, like what the title of the play was and whatnot) then have us create a scene. We had to figure out the relationship between Vladamir and Estragon, the context of their conversation, etc.

About a week or so later, after everyone performed their scene, she told us what it was about. What my teacher said, was that it was about searching for one's identity and finding a relationship with God. I don't know if this is actually true, but she told us that Godot was another name for God.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/7/06 at 9:44pm

I feel like that would be a fairly common interpretation -- that Godot is God. And just looking at the character's name, I guess it does seem viable. I'd probably sooner call it "whatever you'd like to believe in," because "God" is a bit limiting, but I see where that could be.

[TheaterAddict7652]

Posted: 4/7/06 at 9:52pm

The whole "Godot is God" idea made sense to me at the time, since the one-page scene I got was entirely about the Bible. My scene partner and I set it in a Sunday school class.

[greenegirl87]

Posted: 4/7/06 at 9:55pm

Beckett always said that Godot was not supposed to be God, but I think that is a load of crap.

And Lucky's tirade has a lot of Christ allusions in it, but it is in very scientific terms. It refers back to the Bishop Berkely that they alluded to earlier who struggled to write about relating religion and science. It makes religion seem really futile, and relates Lucky to Jesus in the sense that they are both carrying useless burden's (the bags of sand) and what Beckett feels religion is to the people.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/8/06 at 1:58pm

I finished it. I'm not sure how much I agree with it being a blatantly religious allegory; I think it's a more abstract (and therefore universal) search for meaning.

Not like that does much for discussion, since it's very broad. But maybe that's the point of existentialism.

[broadway86]

Posted: 4/8/06 at 2:04pm

emcee-

That's really strange. My class is reading the same play. Right now.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/8/06 at 2:06pm

I think it's read in many classes.

I read an excerpt from it in my theatre class last year, and now I'm using it for my drama theory term paper. I had a choice, but I picked this one because so many people love it.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/8/06 at 3:27pm

One minor tip concerning the interpretation of this play -- especially how it should play in performance. People treat Beckett's work with entirely too much seriousness and reverence (even he thought so) and act as if he didn't have a sense of humor which can make his plays deathly to sit through. He was actually a big fan of Charlie Chaplin and slapstick humor and vaudeville and the best productions of Godot have a very light touch and treat Vlad and Gogo almost like a comedy team. Some Beckett scholars have compared them to Laurel & Hardy and the best version I've seen of the play was a tv film version from the 60s with Zero Mostel and Burgess Meredith, who not only captured the characters fears and confusion and aimlessness, but played up the utter absurdity of their predicament with subtle (and at times not so subtle) humor. It's amazing how much clearer the play seems when you don't try to analyze and make sense of each and every line for its meaning. For Beckett, much of life and human existence is unknowable and perhaps it's all just some grand joke some higher power is playing on us (but don't get too caught up in the whole "God" religious interpretation of the play -- it only goes so far in explaining aspects of the play and you'll end up coming up with all sorts of symbolic "meanings" that Beckett clearly never intended).

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/8/06 at 3:33pm

He was actually a big fan of Charlie Chaplin and slapstick humor and vaudeville and the best productions of Godot have a very light touch and treat Vlad and Gogo almost like a comedy team.

That's how I pictured them. Especially 'cause it ain't Beckett without a bowler. (That whole scene where they just take the hats on and off of each other -- that's so Charlie Chaplain.)

[Tirso de Molina]

Posted: 4/8/06 at 3:40pm

I'd also add that GODOT is a difficult play to read, rather than to see onstage. Back in the 90s, I saw a production in London directed by Peter Hall, who'd directed the London premiere 40-odd years earlier, and what impressed me was how "musical" the dialogue is -- that is, that the constant repetitions and variations in the dialogue are like themes recurring and being developed in a symphony. The dialogue can look rather awkward on the page, but in a good production Beckett's language can produce an effect that goes far beyond the actual content of the utterances; this aspect of Beckett's writing (think James Joyce here) is often ignored in favor of grappling with the "meaning" of the lines, but Beckett didn't see stage dialogue as serving only to convey information.

[Lamc16]

Posted: 4/8/06 at 3:42pm

Interesting comments, Margo. Would have loved to see Mostel and Meredith in the roles.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/8/06 at 3:49pm

and what impressed me was how "musical" the dialogue is -- that is, that the constant repetitions and variations in the dialogue are like themes recurring and being developed in a symphony. The dialogue can look rather awkward on the page, but in a good production Beckett's language can produce an effect that goes far beyond the actual content of the utterances; this aspect of Beckett's writing (think James Joyce here) is often ignored in favor of grappling with the "meaning" of the lines, but Beckett didn't see stage dialogue as serving only to convey information.

That reminds me of the way I feel about Gertrude Stein. I read some of her stuff, and it just made my head spin. All of the repetition confused me, and I wanted to find some kind of sense in it, but I just couldn't figure out what it was saying. Then I watched a video of Four Saints in Three Acts, and the dialogue, once set to the score, somehow made much more sense, and it was actually very weirdly beautiful.

[Tirso de Molina]

Posted: 4/8/06 at 4:15pm

Somewhere out there is a wonderful film of Beckett's play Rockaby with Billie Whitelaw, which perfectly demonstrates how musical and even incantatory Beckett's language is -- it's an utterly hypnotic performance of this monologue. I remember seeing it on PBS back in the late 70s or early 80s, but I don't think it's available commercially.

By the way, the Burgess Meredith/Zero Mostel GODOT was released on VHS; I don't believe it's still available commercially (are you listening, Broadway Theatre Archive?!), but you might find it in a local library if you look.

Updated On: 4/8/06 at 04:15 PM

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/8/06 at 4:25pm

I saw Marian Seldes perform Rockabye at a Beckett Tribute a couple of years ago and it was mesmerizing.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 1:15am

Bump for the night owls.

[jasonf]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 1:30am

Isn't the whole play meant to be an existential commentary on life? Basically, we're here born and then we die, and while things may change around us, we're still the same. It's been a while since I studied the play in school, so I don't really remember the specifics of Lucky's speech. He and...oh, what's his name, his master...are symbols of what changes around us, but the fact that Godot never comes, and Vlad and Gogo never leave or really change is the commentary on our lives. I always actually thought of Godot as death more than God...
And Margo's right about the comedy - I remember my professor saying something about the fact that the humor was a comment on the absurdity of life, and how we all amuse ourselves to pass the time...

Something like that - like I said, it's been a while...