Background
‘Waiting for Godot’ - written originally in French as ‘En Attendant Godot’ in 1949 - premiered at the Théâtre de Babylone, Paris on 5 January 1953. Initially, this extraordinary radical drama confused and bored traditional theatre audiences and critics. They were all too ready to agree with Estragon’s observation: ‘Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful?’
However, Beckett’s perception of inner reality drew praise from fellow dramatists Tennessee Williams, Jean Anouilh, Thornton Wilder, and William Saroyan who observed, ‘It will make it easier for me and everyone else to write freely in the theatre.’ Harold Hobson, the influential ‘Sunday Times’ critic, at once perceived:
‘ … the two tramps are always waiting for the future, their ruinous consolations being that there is always tomorrow; they never realise that today is today. In this, says Mr. Beckett, they are like humanity, which dawdles and drivels away its life … Go and see “Waiting for Godot”. At the worst you will discover a curiosity, a four-leaved clover, a black tulip; at the best, something that will securely lodge in a corner of your mind for as long as you live.’
Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who directed the screen production for the Beckett on Film project, says:
‘Godot is written with great rigour and definition. Beckett creates an amazing blend of comedy, high wit and an almost unbearable poignancy in a funny yet heartbreaking image of man’s fate. With the camera, you can pick those moments and emphasise them, making Beckett’s rare and extraordinary words all the more intimate.’
