Waiting for Godot Review_Paul Ahn
To be honest while reading this script I was not able to grasp not even on lingering main point of the story. I mean yes it is an absurdist play but I did not expect such torrent of confusion. Making a plot go forward but at the same time making it so confusing would require talent no doubt. The dialogues between Estragon and Vladmir is similar to the dialogues we’ve seen before in “Noises Off”. Their dialogues are a constant back and forth in which they do somewhat follow a logical flow but at the same time they are utterly baffling in the sense that they do not coherently follow on particular topic. But in “Waiting for Godot” it becomes far more worse. Their dialogues are like pinning two sentence generating machines together, that takes in some sentence and outputs a corresponding semi-logical sentence, and just let it rip. Their main concern is waiting for this person named Godot, but it hardly is the main concern since they do not really care enough for them to remember it. It could be Godot is just a metaphor for the courage to finally commit suicide since they have stated that they will indeed go through with hanging themselves once they consult with Godot. Then enters Pozzo and Lucky, a master and a slave. Their role in this play is still not sure to me, they do stand out as a very interesting pair of characters with Pozzo’s curelty for Lucky and Lucky’s epiphany slash seizure like monologues. In Act 1 Lucky gives a very long monologue which consists of something I find to be babble. It might be that my linguistic skills are lacking but if I were to listen to this monologue in an actual play, and not read it on script, I would definitely not have been able to understand let alone follow his words. I’m still debating on whether that was the whole point. Thereafter, despite Lucky’s babbling, the three continues on with their conversation about nothing. The appearance of the boy does not unravel any more information, in fact, the boy’s role is to just instigate Estragon and Vladmir’s curiosity, not satisfy them. The boy is apparently here by order of Godot, but he does not relay any message and 90 percent of his dialogues are “yes, sir”. Honestly, again, I’m not sure what to make of this play. It doesn’t have a plot, or does it seem to be making any point. However, it does seem to be touching upon series of themes such as religion, masculinity, purposeless, and et cetra. What I saw from the repetition of the seemingly aimless dialogues and the ending that seems to represent a snake biting its own tail; the play to me showed the meaningless droll of everyday life. Having meaningless events here and there, contemplating about the end of it all and what might come after. But it the end Godot will not come and again tomorrow will start again. It could also be about God and his participation with the mortal world, seeing how the boy and his brother were both goatherd and a shepherd, both of them a messenger to Godot.