Comments on: Nothing to be done – Godot revisited

By: ps

ps — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 23:43:49 +0000

I played estragon in this production and i would just say that the choice of accent is obviously a very personal one but when reading the play and hearing it outloud so many of the of the phrases sounded “irish” that we felt that was the most appropriate choice. it was written in french but by an Irishman.

By: Beckett's Waiting for Godot | John Baker's Blog

Beckett's Waiting for Godot | John Baker's Blog — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 13:13:36 +0000

[...] April 30, the play moves to the Theatre Royal Haymarket. I had more to say about the script in my last review. POZZO: (suddenly furious.) Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed [...]

By: Mat

Mat — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:05:01 +0000

Just writing an essay on this and i stumbled upon your blog…

It’s been incredibly useful, but i noticed something and i thought I’d tell you…

The Irish accents are used because phrases like “Get up till I embrace you.” suggest that sort of region, although it’s not specified it is often interpreted, as in the dvd…

Anyway cheers for the help…

jb says: That’s all good stuff, Mat. Thanks for telling us . . .

By: Tommi

Tommi — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 22:53:56 +0000

Lovely post. Nice write-up about a great piece of humanity. I agree with almost everything you write here. But more than not I wish to disagree with the whole waiting thing…
When I moved to Germany in the late 1980s Beckett was producing End Game in Berlin. I just missed a chance to meet him. Yeah, I’m still waiting…
(I’m drunk on Tuscan wine right now and listening to The Wanton Song by Led Zepplin; next up is In My Time Of Dying.)
Without this play I probably would have never made it through my twenties. But I’m over Beckett now.
I think.
You forgot the significance of the child (boy) at the end of the play. How the young boy enters and he always seemed to me the only character never really waiting for anything.
Yeah, that child…
Thanks.
Tommi

jb says: Tuscan wine, eh? Well I do remember wrapping myself around a Chianti Classico, so often at one time I can’t remember who I missed.

By: Dick

Dick — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:44:56 +0000

I can remember my parents going to the first UK production at the Arts Theatre in 1955. They kept me awake into the small hours arguing about it, my father raving, my mother uncomprehending.

‘Estragon (spoken to Vladimir in a fury): Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It’s abominable! When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day he [Lucky] went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we’ll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you? (Calmer, and more to himself) They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more.’

jb says: Hi Dick. Why are we here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in this immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come.

By: Jim Murdoch

Jim Murdoch — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 12:54:37 +0000

It’s a play I never tire of and one I have studied in depth. I spent six weeks last year rewriting the dire Wikipedia article on it and there’s not much I’ve haven’t known about the writing and production of it not that I can remember a fraction of it any more. Damn memory! You are right about the accents – the script does not specify any – and the last time I saw it in Glasgow they used Glaswegian accents to good effect. (As an aside I saw the late Russell Hunter play Krapp at the Tron in 2000. We had front row seats. He was fantastic.)

My lovely wife arranged for a nice lady in France to rattle off a couple of Didi and Gogo rag dolls a couple of years back and the following year she cut up a pair of old shoes and made Estragon his boots. Clever wife. (‘Rag doll’ doesn’t really do them justice – they’re about 10″ tall and have pride of place in my office).

I even had the gall a few years back to write a sequel, ‘Vladimir and Estragon are Dead’, set in limbo but I’ve never had the balls to try and do anything with it. I sent it to a Harvard professor I got into conversation with last year. I mailed him a copy of Pinter’s Krapp to show his students and he read my play in return. He didn’t rip it to sheds so I suppose that was something.

jb says: Thanks, Jim, It would have been nice to see that production of Krapp, but there you go, nothing to be done. You should try to do something with Vladimir and Estragon are Dead, keep it in the post, times change, people and ideas change, it’s time will come around.