What shall we do now? (Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett)

Member Name: moronboy

Product:	Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett
Date:	16/09/00 (33 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Will leave you with endless questions

Disadvantages: Will leave you with endless questions

Beckett managed to exercise enormous control over how 'Godot' has been staged, so I guess that reading it allows you a certain amount of freedom. Even so, there aren't a whole lot of clues. It's one of those plays which has been interpreted both as the last word in atheism (the tramps spend their entire lives doing absolutely nothing waiting for something which is clearly a con), and as a moving celebration of faith (they'll keep waiting for Godot, because they believe in him).

I tend towards the former, perhaps because I am a heathen, and also because there's an air of piss-taking, or clowning and general scepticism about anything and everything in the play that makes me suspect that God isn't getting a good press here if that's what it's about. Beckett saw one of the original productions and demanded that the already long pauses be extended, he really wanted the audience to be fumbling. In this way, 'Godot' becomes that most post-modern of works, a great classic play which is a full-throttle assault on the theatrical experience, deliberately violating suspension of disbelief, and defiantly boring.

Except that this last bit rarely works, if it really is the intention. Beckett's timing, his rhythm and his wit is desert dry and irresistible. 'Godot' onstage is a rivetting experience, and very good on the page too.

Summary: