Waiting for Godot (En attendant Godot, pronounced /'gɑ.do/) is a two-act play by Irish-French writer Samuel Beckett, first performed in 1953. It depicts two consecutive days in the lives of two characters as they entertain themselves while waiting for someone named Godot. This includes a great deal of absurd conversation, stories that are begun but never ended, naps, contemplation of suicide, and an encounter with a man and his slave. The circumstances of these events often vary dramatically first day to the next, and the characters' memories of the prior day are often incomplete. Both acts end with a child informing the two men that Godot will not be coming.
Beckett was quite open that Waiting for Godot was deliberately written in violation of the fictional conventions of the day. Thus, the play is absurd as a matter of course. Critics have read all manner of meaning into Godot's failure to appear, as well as the dramatic changes certain characters experience from the first act to the second.
Godot is thought to be an important influence on Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966).
Waiting for Godot in "We Haven't Got There Yet"[]
Waiting for Godot was the second play performed by a time-displaced acting troupe at The Rose in 1606. William Shakespeare, having enjoyed the company's previous effort, entered the theater wondering who Godot was, and who was waiting for him.
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