Abstract:The choice of Waiting for Godot for this volume needs little explanation. The first play of Beckett's to be performed (in Paris in 1953) it effected a revolution in the theatre, demolishing convention...The choice of Waiting for Godot for this volume needs little explanation. The first play of Beckett's to be performed (in Paris in 1953) it effected a revolution in the theatre, demolishing conventional ideas of plot and character and showing how a profound concern with the nature and meaning of human existence could be embodied in comedy which continually draws attention to itself as theatre and ironically undermines attempts to impose hard-and-fast meanings on it. Since Peter Hall directed the English version at the Arts Theatre in 1955, the theatre has absorbed Beckett in the way that Ibsen was once absorbed. Waiting for Godot has passed into the public consciousness: innumerable cartoons, jokes and stories testify to the assumption that even people who may never have read or seen the play will recognise the famous image of the two down-at-heel figures waiting by the tree for the Godot who never comes.Read More
Publication Year: 1990
Publication Date: 1990-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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