Waiting for Godot - review

"Waiting for Godot" is a play by Samuel Beckett, one of the most popular Irish playwrights of XX century. In this piece of art, two main characters, Vladimir and Estragon are waiting restless and hopeful for some kind of savior called Godot. Probably this name means ‘a little God’, but the author of work had never confirmed this information. Playwright didn’t wrote it in English, but in French (the original title - “En attendant Godot”). In the aftermath of translation to his mother tongue, appeared a new interpretations of meaning the play. Dialogues between two major characters became more significant and also mysterious. Some of reviewers suspected that the author hide some new information thanks to English version. This exceptional piece of art is a connection of tragicomic, black comedy and gallows humour. hroughout Waiting for Godot, the reader or viewer may encounter religious, philosophical, classical, psychoanalytical and biographical – especially wartime – references. There are ritualistic aspects and elements taken directly from vaudeville and there is a danger in making more of these than what they are: that is, merely structural conveniences, avatars into which the writer places his fictional characters. The play exploits several archetypal forms and situations, all of which lend themselves to both comedy and pathos. Waiting for Godot follows a pair of men who divert themselves while waiting expectantly, vainly for someone named Godot to arrive. They claim he's an acquaintance but in fact hardly know him, admitting that they would not recognize him when they do see him. To occupy the time they eat, sleep, converse, argue, sing, play games, exercise, swap hats, and contemplate suicide. Beckett refrained from elaborating on the characters beyond what he had written in the play. He once recalled that when Sir Ralph Richardson wanted the low-down on Pozzo, his home address and curriculum vitae, and seemed to make the forthcoming of this and similar information the condition of his condescending to illustrate the part of Vladimir. I told him that all I knew about Pozzo was in the text, that if I had known more I would have put it in the text, and that was true also of the other characters.