Theatre of the Absurd

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 130. Chapters: Samuel Beckett, Edward Albee, Tom Stoppard, Waiting for Godot, Václav Havel, Eugène Ionesco, Act Without Words I, Sam Shepard, Play, Breath, Krapp's Last Tape, All That Fall, Embers, Happy Days, Rough for Radio II, Eh Joe, Quad, What Where, Footfalls, Words and Music, Cascando, Characteristics of Harold Pinter's work, From an Abandoned Work, Ghost Trio, Works of Harold Pinter, Ohio Impromptu, Rockaby, ... but the clouds ..., The Old Tune, Catastrophe, Ubu Roi, Not I, N. F. Simpson, A Piece of Monologue, That Time, Rough for Theatre II, Act Without Words II, Nacht und Träume, Endgame, Rhinoceros, Zombie Strippers, Exit the King, Mump and Smoot, The Mystery of Irma Vep, Victimes du devoir, The Bald Soprano, Le piège de Méduse, The Chairs, House of Several Stories, Line, Stanislav Stratiev, The Lesson, Arthur Adamov, The Killer, Farces et moralités, George Ciprian, Kicking a Dead Horse, Naqshineh Theatre, Chamber Music, Amédée, or How to Get Rid of It, Jack, or The Submission, Macbett, The Hole, The New Tenant, Hunger and Thirst, Patria. Excerpt: Waiting for Godot ( -oh) is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's premiere. It was voted "the most significant English language play of the 20th century". Waiting for Godot is Beckett's translation of his own original French version, 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 première was on 5 January 1953 in the Théâtre de Babylone, Paris. The production was directed by Roger Blin, who also played the role of Pozzo. Waiting for Godot follows two days in the lives of a pair of men who divert themselves while they wait expectantly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. They claim him as an acquaintance but in fact hardly know him, admitting that they would not recognise him were they to see him. To occupy themselves, they eat, sleep, converse, argue, sing, play games, exercise, swap hats, and contemplate suicide - anything "to hold the terrible silence at bay". The play opens with the character Estragon struggling to remove his boot from his foot. Estragon eventually gives up, muttering, "Nothing to be done." His friend Vladimir takes up the thought and muses on it, the implication being that nothing is a thing that has to be done and this pair is going to have to spend the rest of the play doing it. When Estragon finally succeeds in removing his boot, he looks and feels inside but finds nothing. Just prior to this, Vladimir peers into his hat. The motif recurs throughout the play. The pair discuss repentance, particularly in relation to the two thieves crucified alongside Jesus, and that only one of the Four Evangelists mentions that one of them was saved. This is the first of numerous Biblical references