Waiting For Godot has been described as a show about nothing. 'Nothing happens, nobody
comes, nobody goes' as a theatre critic once famously complained in a sublime example of missing the point. The plot of Waiting For Godot comes in two acts and centres around the impotent wait, next to a tree, of two tramps named Estragon and Vladimir for a man named Godot. The action thus consists mostly of inaction for the two men are paralysed from the outset by the perceived need to wait, over the termination of which they have no control. There are only three other characters; Pozzi, Lucky, and the Boy. Pozzi and Lucky are a grotesque semi parody of a master and slave relationship who introduce more physical and absurdist elements to the piece and the Boy comes bearing news of Godot. Both the pair of Pozzi and Lucky and the Boy enter and leave once in each
act, making obvious the circularity of the piece as the second act closely mirrors the first. The real events of Waiting for Godot are the
ideas in the central dialogue between Estragon and Vladimir and their interaction between the characters. The
play is consists not only of dialogue but also strange songs, weird dances, and farcical moments that recall nineteenth century vaudeville as much as twentieth century angst. It all comes together to make a surprisingly frenetic, absurdist, and darkly comic script, in which images and ideas of sexuality, mortality, friendship, violence, spiritual impotence, hope and much more are brought out in the shadow of the sheer absurdity of
existence. The play is in effect a meditation on the kind of existential doubt that Beckett made his own through this play and others like it. It is a play that through a central conceit of being about nothing manages to raise questions about everything, demanding close analysis of its minutae whilst simultaneously raising huge, fundamental questions about our existence in this world.
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