Waiting for Godot

This was my last spring break. Well, undergraduate anyway, I think. Things get confuddled when one is planning on studying abroad. I spent a few days in Toronto, during which time I saw Waiting for Godot, a very famous play by Samuel Beckett. (Incidentally, I loved Toronto, and could very easily see myself living there, the cold and snow notwithstanding).

I loved the play. It really fit my current mood, because I've been in a real funk the past few weeks, and don't know why. To be honest, I've kind of been in a funk for a while, but it seemed to be more severe recently. If you haven't seen it or read it, you must. It is absurdist, so don't worry, it's supposed to be that way. And by that way, I mean confusing, untraditional, and lacking in the common features you usually see in a plot. In watching it performed you really get the full weight of its meaning: the repetition and futility of life. While seated, you are intrigued and yet bored by the character's interplay, which I think is how it's meant to be. The conversation is dull and goes over the same things again and again (e.g. "Go-Go: I'm going to leave. Di-Di: You can't. Go-Go: Why not? Di-Di: Because we're waiting for Godot!" repeats many many times throughout both acts.) The time moves slowly, and the scene doesn't change. There are few characters. You feel the full weight of their own boredom and the struggle to find things to pass the time. In the end, there is no resolution. It is readily apparent that both acts (essentially the same in structure and content) form a representative sample of the whole of their lives. Nothing changes, Godot never comes. They continue waiting.

Most interpretations of the play say that the two main characters, Estragon and Vladimir (Go-Go and Di-Di) represent all of humanity. The constant struggle for them to wait for Godot, someone who will never arrive, can mirror the futility of life itself, the fact that we wait for nothing, because it never comes, whatever that nothing may be. Godot is often considered to represent God, which makes sense given much of the dialogue in the play, but Beckett has said this is an incorrect interpretation, and that he never meant it to be so.

I found the play to be tragic, depressing, but wonderfully done and exactly fitting a very pessimistic mood, most likely brought on by other factors I won't mention here. The theater we saw it at was great, the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, deep in the Distillery District. The audience for this play was less than 30 people, and we were front and center, about 10 feet from the actors. It made for an enveloping experience.

Don't fret for me and my mood, however, if you would do so. I think that a lot of the factors that were contributing to it will (hopefully) go away soon. Then I can go back to being my chipper self.