Our first Beckett play is Waiting for Godot. The subtitle on the edition we have is "A Tragicomedy in Two Acts", which is a reasonably effective description of the play. I found it both humorous and sad. Funny because there are some very good lines, especially Estragon's. Sad because it is a play about meaninglessness and hopelessness, and it is sad to think how many people end up in that state. Often, critics describe it as a play about nothing in which nothing happens, though that conclusion is ultimately incorrect.
In the first act, Estragon often plays the voice of existentialism. He opens the play with the line, "Nothing to be done," as he struggles to remove his boots. This effectively summarizes the position Estragon and Vladimir share, having suspended their lives as they wait for Godot's promised arrival, They wait for the order to move on to the next thing. Meanwhile, they are bored, killing time and squandering their lives. (Time is the stuff of which life is made, to paraphrase Ben Franklin.)
Estragon's second line, in response to Vladimir's "So there you are again," is "Am I?" This could be (likely is) a succinct statement of the existential dilemma. Is he there? Is he there again? (Has he ever been there before?) Existentialism says that he can never be certain. Another reading might see this as him asking if this is really a repetition. Since every moment is new, the past is gone, uncertain, malleable and tainted by limited perception, is it really again? Is he the same person who was there before? All these questions are embedded in these two words.
Estragon's third line wraps up his opening philosophical foray. Vladimir says, "I'm glad to see you back. I thought you were gone forever." Estragon says, "Me too." So, "me too" which? Is he glad to be back? (Is this again?) Is he as glad to see Vladimir as Vladimir claims to be to see him? Or had he thought (hoped?) he was gone forever? I suspect it was the latter. His next line begins a section bemoaning the beating he suffers nightly from "them", the agony of his sore feet, the general misery of his life. Four pages later he has convinced Vladimir that the best thing they could do would be to hang themselves, if only they could be certain the flimsy tree limb wouldn't break and leave one of them alive and alone.
The depth of Estragon's misery and hopelessness is truly sad and is even more evident in the second act where his behavior sometimes borders on senile dementia. For example, at the beginning of the second act as he shouts for Vladimir to leave him alone and then bemoans the fact that he thought Vladimir had abandoned him. Later in the play, Vladimir sings him a lullaby and talks to him as a parent might a child afraid of the dark, or an adult child might an elderly parent suffering from dementia, Alzheimer's or some similar condition. Later still, debating what to do about the fallen Pozzo, Estragon tells Vladimir, "We should ask him for the bone first. Then if he refuses we'll leave him there." Selfish. Childish.
Even so Estragon does not abandon his philosopher role. Beset by intermittent mental decline he still manages the hit Vladimir with complexities like, "You see, you feel worse when I'm with you. I fell better alone too," driving home the sense of discomfort arising from the existentialist uncertainty of existence. After Vladimir wakes him from one of several naps, he complains, "Why will you never let me sleep? … I was dreaming I was happy," longing to return to a state not just of non-consciousness, but non-awareness of the meaninglessness and hopelessness of his existence.
Many critics, play-watchers and readers say Waiting for Godot is a play about nothing in which nothing happens. I beg to differ. Many things happen in the play. There are arguments and debates, witty exchanges, scenes of sadness and joy, fear and courage. The problem is not that nothing is happening in the play, but that the audience arrives with a (mistaken) notion of what is going to happen, what should happen, based on the title. Why should one expect a play called Waiting for Godot to include Godot's arrival? Would we expect Shakespeare's Waiting for the Tempest to overlap Shakespeare's The Tempest? If Waiting for Tam Lin detailed Tam Lin's arrival and what happened after, wouldn't it be better called Tam Lin (as, in fact, Pamela Dean called it, though she introduces him by a more modern version of his name first). Apparently some people do and feel cheated because the play never delivers on the "promise" the play's title never signed. The play is about waiting for Godot. A lot of waiting happens in the play. Estragon and Vladimir do constantly, burning massive amounts of energy and time while accomplishing nothing but waiting.
Finally, let's consider how the title is incorrect. Vladimir and Estragon are not actually waiting for someone named Godot. Instead, they are waiting for lightning. They stare at a fixed point searching for a blinding flash of lightning, stand in a single spot listening for a deafening peal of thunder to announce, "It's time for a change. Quit resting. Go, do 't and be fulfilled."
That shout never comes. Certainly not in the play, rarely for people in general.
Instead, announcement comes as a whisper. "Are you miserable? Are you alone? Are you hurting? Are you lost?" Estragon and Vladimir have misery, loneliness, pain and bewilderment four-of-a-kind in spades, each in different ways. To these sad, lonely seekers, the whisper beckons, "Come home. Be part of the family. Be healed. Be found." But, in the end, beset by a angelic boy who continually questions their memory of the past and their very existence and who devilishly eggs them on with promises of a great, loud, wonderful, unmissable sign that will never be delivered, they are unwilling to abandon their quest for the roaring wind, the shaking earth and the searing fire.
Thus, Vladimir and Estragon miss the quiet whisper that says everything they need to hear. "It's time for a change. Quit doing. Come, rest and be fulfilled."
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