Advantages: Applicable to a modern audience Disadvantages: Takes a lot of studying to truly understand it
...Beckett's most popular absurdist play, Waiting For Godot, is one of the first examples critics point to when talking about the Theatre of the Absurd. This is perhaps because it follows the simple rules of having no real story line but instead having a series of "free floating images" I.e. the tree, focusing on the incomprehensibility of the world or an attempt to rationalize an irrational, disorderly world and having language act as a barrier to ... ...not completely nihilistic. Waiting for Godot, written and first performed in French in 1954, had an enormous impact on theatregoers due to its strange and new conventions. Consisting of an essentially barren set, with the exception of a virtually leafless tree, clown-like tramps, and highly symbolic language, Godot challenges its audience to question all of the old rules and to try to make sense of a world that is beyond our understanding. At the ...
tashat 30.05.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett
...that is waiting.
The word waiting is very strong in the title of this play it stand s out from all other words its not wait or wited its waiting that means that it is an action that is kepp on going without any end. This waiting is the epitome opf all our life. This waiting is infinite so it makes itself at one instance useless also because its without any end. If some one has seen the first part of matrix there is one line that really is echoing ... ...Estragon. Bothe of them are waiting for godot by a tree. The words that are most important in the play are nothing as they are liiterally doing nothing in the play all they are doing is waiting. They keep on waiting till the end of the play. As all the actions they do during this waiting are reduced to nothing. Then we are introduced to two new characters and one of them is Lucky who though is a servant has the intellect but he is treated as an animal. ...
sandy.imy 02.02.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett
Advantages: Fascinating, beautifully comical, unpatronising, complete yet not satisfying Disadvantages: Probably boring to some due to lack of real action
...play ambling about the stage, waiting for Godot to appear and sporadically threatening to leave or suggesting that they commit suicide. Nothing happens, as Beckett himself writes in the play. A few entrances and exits, but in general nothing more than frustration and occasional wonder.
It's fantastically funny, with witty and bizarre comments flying between Vladimir, Estragen and Pozzo (but not, of course, Lucky, who is treated as an animal for ... ...pages with no punctuation). The play is beautifully crafted and Beckett's genius brings it all together, able to leave the audience dissatisfied because there is no solution, no ending. He gets his point across in an enlightening way and I'm only sorry I couldn't have performed it as my practical A-level coursework, because it would have been the most rewarding and fun piece of work we could ever have done. ...
punkdizzylaa 30.03.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett
Advantages: Original, funny and interesting Disadvantages: Not everyone's cup of tea
Samuel Beckett has been a great influence to 20th Century theatre. In the 1950's he invented a new kind of play - absurd.
Now many of you may read this play and think that it is the biggest lot of rubbish, but as I always say - a play is meant to be seen and not read.
"Waiting For Godot" was the beginning of absurd drama and absolutely slated by the press on it's opening. One reviewer wrote "Nothing happens. It's terrible!" But somehow, it caught ... ...in Beckett's footsteps.
The play shows us a day in the life of Vladimir and Estragon, two homeless men waiting... for... well Godot of course. What Godot is, we can only speculate, but the play is funny (if performed correctly) and intrigueing.
If your usual type of play is "Mrs. Brown's Last Wedding" or "Jack And The Beanstalk", then give this a look in - it's very different but very entertaining. ...
Kozinski 23.12.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett
Advantages: Great play Disadvantages: Hard to get into for some people
Waiting for Godot was originally written in French but was subsequently translated back to English by Beckett. It was Beckett's first play, and many would say one of his greatest.
There are heavy influences from Beckett's peer-group in the "Theatre of the Absurd" - which later influenced writers such as Tom Stoppard and Harold Pinter.
The two main charachters are Vladimir and Estragon who are waiting on a deserted road for Godot to come along.
... ...Vladimir and Estragon... they are waiting for Godot and he never seems to show up. At one point they consider committing suicide, but they are worried - what if the branch breaks and I can't come with you? or what if the rope breaks?
Many people have drawn the analogy between Godot and God unsurprisingly, but whether this is what Beckett intended is unclear.
The meaning might be interpreted as waiting for God, but him never appearing. Over the ...
kenigma 22.02.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett
Advantages: One of the best plays of our time Disadvantages: May not appeal to everyone due to lack of action
...be enjoyed or understood.
However, Waiting for Godot is one of the best plays written in the twentieth century, portraying a terribly bleak view of the repetitiveness and monotony of the meaningless cycle of life and commenting on the futility of even trying to find a meaning in life. This is what the two main characters Vladimir, or "Didi", and Estragon, or "Gogo", are trying to do while they wait for Godot (presumably representing the God who ... ...the play is often criticised, but is essential to the bleak outlook of the play, being combined with the constant repetition of lines and Estragon's infuriatingly short memory span.
This play may not be everyone's slice of cake, but for a piece of beautifully scripted bleak view on human nature, with a touch of surreality, look no further ...
cormacbrown 19.04.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett
Advantages: Brilliant play and well written. Disadvantages: Can be boring to people who do not appreciate it.
Waiting for Godot is a classic and it seems to be either loved or hated by those who have read, seen or studied it. It is unsual, to say the very least, but when I studied, then saw and then stage managed this play, I grew to love it.
Beckett has written a play about two old tramps (more or less), Vladimir and Estragon, who sit and wait for ever for a 'Godot' who never comes. We are never told why, or who Godot is (although it is a he)and much of ...
Motley 28.12.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett
Advantages: An introduction to one of the most infamous theatre changing plays Disadvantages: 'Nothing happens, nobody comes'
...this breed of theatre. Waiting for Godot follows two days in the lives of Vladimir, an incontinent thinker and Estragon, a tramp like ex poet. These two charactes are set in a area where there is only a tree. They discuss death, life, reincarnation, birth and many other moral subjects. They sit and wait for one reason, to wait for Godot. Who Godot is, well, we never find out. The connotations of the name surely make you think that it is God or some ... ...life can be. Maybe waiting for godot is metaphorical, it shows the audience how dull and meaningless life is. Maybe we are watching characters in pergatory (limbo) while they wai for their trial from Godot. Whatever the wait, these characters have set the way for playwrites such as Tom Stoppard, creating this fascinating and black form of comedy. ...
sarahsoo 11.04.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett
Advantages: originality Disadvantages: difficult to read
This play, first written in French and performed in France, is a novel invention and is one of the great works of modern theatre. It breaks down all the conventions and rules of theatre (set up by Aristotle and his unities) and produces and almost non-play. There is no action, little characterisation and no hints at time or place, in short the audience are totally lost. It is a strange beast of a play and should be read as well as seen on the strange. ...
lewiscrofts 17.07.2000
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