Waiting for Godot

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Data
Title: Waiting for Godot
Original title: En attendant Godot
Genus: Theater of the absurd
Original language: French
Author: Samuel Beckett
Publishing year: 1952
Premiere: 5th January 1953
Place of premiere: Théâtre de Babylone , Paris
people
  • tarragon
  • Vladimir
  • Lucky
  • Pozzo
  • A young

Waiting for Godot (French original title: En attendant Godot ) is a play by Samuel Beckett , which began in autumn 1948, was completed in early 1949 and published in 1952. After Beckett had looked in vain for a possible performance for a long time, it was finally premiered on January 5, 1953 at the Théâtre de Babylone in Paris. The premiere was directed by Roger Blin , who played as Pozzo himself. The performance was surprisingly successful and gave Beckett his breakthrough as a writer. The first production in German-speaking countries (translation by Elmar Tophoven ) took place on September 8, 1953 in the Schlosspark Theater in Berlin.

Beckett's world fame is based not least on this play, the title of which has meanwhile become an international idiom and which, not entirely following the play, means the compulsion to wait long and in vain.

content

Because of an unimportant question, the two long-time friends of the tramps Estragon and Wladimir wait the second and third days for an answer from Godot, whom they only vaguely know. Tarragon in particular, who repeatedly forgets this commitment and thus alludes to the main theme of incomplete memory, begins to suffer from the uneventful idleness that goes with it that he expresses the wish to break off the wait more than ten times. But this request, which turns them into “supplicants”, blocks all attempts to leave or to reorientate: “To do nothing!” On both days a boy appears as Godot's messenger, who tells them that Godot will not come today, but tomorrow. Their arduous wait is interrupted by the appearance of a gentleman, Pozzo, and his servant, Lucky, who at times provide a change. The piece ends with a never-ending wait.

Call of the dead

In addition to the eponymous loss of initiative, which only affects the two, issues of social relevance appear in the first and, above all, second act: violence on the street, the exploitation of others, the death of millions of people, whose ashes and bones are a reaction from challenge the survivors - Tarragon and Vladimir feel that they are being addressed by them on behalf of all of humanity: "At this point and at this moment we are humanity, whether we like it or not." It is tarragon, which is so forgetful with regard to Godot, who repeatedly included references to global Christian responsibility in the discussions.

In order to avoid the reflection on the causes of the catastrophe, the "thinking", Estragon and Wladimir are now inventing a series of "games" that are supposed to excuse and conceal their refusal to think and empathize and to dispel the memory focus of the atrocities: Taking off their shoes, quickly swapping their hats, imitating Pozzo and Lucky, insulting each other - and then reaffirming their friendship, physical exercise, the search for names ... This evasion of responsibility is represented by the two of them as a mirror of a social one Life concept that on the surface is an active waiting out of deadly boredom, but underneath it is a systematic refusal of moral consequences. To illustrate the inconsistency, Beckett lets his figures announce an action several times as an allegorical structural form , which they then, performatively contradicting , do not carry out: “We go? - Let's go! They don't move . ”Vladimir can therefore ask, irritated, whether the games of distraction“ save our minds from ruin ”or, on the contrary, lead it into a moral“ night of unfathomable depths ”.

Trauma denial

In Waiting for Godot there is a double structure of self-restraint: in persevering because of a triviality it is a matter of passing the time; In dealing with the most pressing questions of the post-war period, the aim is to dispel thinking at the same time and to avoid the questions of cause by playing new games. What in the first case still appears as the “absurd theater” of two vagrants becomes in the second case a criticism of the moral refusal of one world to look back at its traumas and to work on preventing the next. The formula “Nothing to be done”, which opens the piece and is repeated several times, is therefore semantically meant on the one hand descriptively in relation to the acceleration of Godot's answer, on the other hand prescriptively in relation to the rejection of all questions of cause in society. Without distinguishing between these two concepts of action, Beckett's moral criticism becomes invisible in the purely absurd.

Confusion among intellectuals

The landowner Pozzo , who later temporarily joins them with his servant slave Lucky (!), Underlines the ethical dimension of the plot. Pozzo is a rich tyrant who, as a porter and as an intellectual, considers himself to be "the ultimate truths", a modern "court jester". In the first act he drives his servant, who is often referred to as a “pig” and is heavily laden with suitcases, like an exhausted packhorse on a rope around his neck, has him fetched and danced on command. With a crack of his whip, as the highlight of his performance, he asks Lucky to “think aloud”. What emerges is a parody of a theodicy , a confused, hastily unwound monologue in which theology, art and philosophy crumble into cultural garbage and the "emaciation", the "becoming smaller" and the "incomplete" of humanity can still be heard several times . Pozzo and Lucky, dependent on each other like master and servant, demonstrate in a grotesque play-within-a-game how the systematic thinking of intellectual court jesters can lead to absurdity. When they appeared later in the second act, after a leap in time, Pozzo has meanwhile become blind and Lucky mute - with their frailty they personify the inconsistency of social morality.

Interpretation and reception

Moral interpretation

Waiting for Godot is often subsumed under the heading of absurd theater . Thereby the for Beckett z. For example, compared to his later endgame , criticism of the moral failure of post-war society is still relatively clear and his approach is reduced to a trivial L'art pour l'art . So should distinguish him between a theater of the absurd and a theater of the absurd , which created an absurd / unreasonable / foolish respected behavior dramatically. On the label “absurd theater”, Aleksandra Kwasnik and Florian Dreyssig state: “Absurd, it's worth correcting it, was never his [= Beckett's] theater. [...] Absurdity, that was Beckett's theme, the human being as a joke in the cosmos, which he let play conventionally with the means of the theater. ” Wolfgang Hildesheimer also warns that the representation of the absurd should not be confused with an absurd representation.

The origin of the French original and the original text support a moral interpretation in the piece, however, because of its abstraction, it is open to several directions of interpretation. In an early version of the manuscript, the figure of tarragon was named "Levy" and in the French original there are still several place names that refer to Jewish institutions in Paris. These can no longer be recognized in the German transmission agreed with Beckett. Nonetheless, the moral reproach, dramatically formed in Waiting for Godot , also approaches in the German version the later so-called “ second guilt ”, which Ralph Giordano saw in the suppression and denial of the “first guilt”, the crimes committed in the context of National Socialism.

An indirect moral-philosophical interpretation is provided by the pessimistic political satire that the Serbian writer Miodrag Bulatović formed out of waiting for Godot . In his parody Godot has come (1966), which are supposed to function as acts 3 and 4 of Beckett's original, he shows what would happen if a redeemer actually appeared. He ruthlessly attacks egoism and the striving for power as typically human. For him, Godot is a man from the people, a good-natured baker who "gives people their daily bread", but is sentenced to death nonetheless.

The Norwegian writer Johan Harstad takes up Beckett's Waiting for Godot as a leitmotif in his novel Max, Mischa and the Tet Offensive, which was published in German in 2019 , and starts the novel, like Beckett's play, with the formula “Nothing to do”. The Vietnam War is already hinted at in the title of the novel, it is again about the death of millions of people and the strength to face this historical responsibility. The literary critic Denis Scheck read this "really contemporary novel" and judged: "Since Goethe's Wilhelm Meister there has not been such a clever theatrical novel ."

Historical interpretation

In 2008, the thesis by Pierre Temkine, which was published in France in 2004, became known in Germany, according to which a historical reading of the two-act is also possible. Based on numerous references in the French original, Temkine comes to the conclusion that Waiting auf Godot also alludes to the situation of the foreigners and French Jews who fled to the unoccupied rest of France around 1942/1943 , but then to Savoy because of the German occupation with the help of smugglers had to flee. Vladimir and Tarragon could be Jews fleeing from Paris, Godot a Resistance smuggler , who does not appear as agreed.

Traditional interpretation

In contrast, the traditional interpretation of literary studies sees Waiting for Godot as a prime example of absurd theater: Vladimir and Estragon are “metaphysical clowns” who “embody the existential lack of housing in humans. (...) In the cycle of such apocalyptic scenarios, Waiting for Godot shows human demise in the vain search for forms of survival, for variations in the pastime. ”“ Human existence as a borderline situation between life and death, figures that forever disappoint Persevering in the illusion of waiting or covering up the certainty of their decay in tragicomic helplessness - that is what Beckett's plays are all about. ”They would reflect the existentialist worldview that there is no real“ meaning of life ”and consequently no fundamental ethical norms for human beings give. This widespread interpretation thus ignores important elements of the text.

Beckett on Waiting for Godot

Samuel Beckett saw the ideal cast of tarragon and Wladimir in the thick-and-doof duo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy . Estragons and Wladimir's appearance, black suit and bowler hat , is modeled on the appearance of Charlie Chaplin , they look "like a comedian couple who got on a dog " (Gina Thomas, FAZ). In a production by Luc Bondy (1999), the couple recalled the famous film "The Odd Couple" with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau (Richard Reich, BZ). Jean Anouilh called Waiting for Godot “ Pascal's 'thoughts' with the Fratellini ”, with the white clowns.

The title Waiting for Godot , according to an anecdote, goes back to a Tour de France stage that Beckett saw somewhere in France. When all the racing drivers were over, he wanted to leave, but saw that some spectators still stayed. When he asked what they were waiting for, they would have replied: “To Godeau!” He was supposedly the slowest driver in the race. The story is probably just legend, as there was never a rider of this name in the Tour de France (but see Roger Godeau ).

Beckett always refused to give interpretations on his pieces. He also refused to answer the speculations about who Godot was or what he stood for: "If I had known [who Godot is] I would not have written the piece." - Godot is referred to in English Word God and the French diminutive ending -ot interpreted as a little god , whose arrival man hopes in vain.

Beckett himself is said to have said that the name Godot goes back to godillot , a colloquial French word for "shoe". According to one interpretation, this could be related to the fact that tarragon has problems with his feet, is constantly tinkering with his shoes and completely loses his ability to walk in the course of the second act.

Another interpretation - supposedly going back to Beckett - can be found in the book "On the banks of the Seine" by Agnès Poirier . Beckett then confidently told his friend Con Leventhal that the name Godot came from a visit to rue Godot de Mauroy in the 9th arrondissement. When he turned down the offer of a prostitute there, the girl asked: “Oh yes? And who are you waiting for? On Godot? ”. Poirier cites as its source: Anthony Cronin , "Samuel Beckett, The last Mordernist," pp. 386–394.

Famous productions

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Samuel Beckett: Plays . Transferred by Elmar Tophoven, Erika Tophoven and Erich Franzen. In: Elmar Tophoven and Klaus Birkenhauer (eds.): Dramatic works 1 . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1995, p. 9-99 .
  2. ↑ Cf. "Waiting in Absurdistan - Samuel Beckett's" Waiting for Godot "was premiered 55 years ago", in: Wissenswerkstatt
  3. ↑ Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot . S. 19th f .
  4. ↑ Beckett: Waiting for Godot . S. 58, 69 .
  5. ↑ Beckett: Waiting for Godot . S. 19, 25 .
  6. ↑ Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot . S. 22 .
  7. ↑ Beckett: Waiting for Godot . S. 14, 19, 21 f., 53, 63, 66, 71, 74, 88, 95, 98 .
  8. ↑ Beckett: Waiting for Godot . S. 20 .
  9. ↑ Beckett: Waiting for Godot . S. 9, 77 .
  10. ↑ Beckett: Waiting for Godot . S. 30 .
  11. ↑ Beckett: Waiting for Godot . S. 65 ff .
  12. ↑ Beckett: Waiting for Godot . S. 83 f .
  13. ↑ Beckett: Waiting for Godot . S. 13 f., 57, 65, 88 .
  14. ↑ Beckett: Waiting for Godot . S. 67 ff .; Before that, Vladimir alone p. 59 f .
  15. ↑ Beckett: Waiting for Godot . S. 84 ff .
  16. ↑ Beckett: Waiting for Godot . S. 99; also 13, 46, 51, 59, 71 .
  17. ↑ Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot . S. 84 .
  18. ↑ Beckett: Waiting for Godot . S. 9, 23, 28 f., 71, 74, 78 .
  19. ↑ Beckett,: Waiting for Godot, p. 37: "In the past you had court jesters. Nowadays you have knucks. If you can afford it."
  20. ↑ Beckett: Waiting for Godot . S. 30, 33, 41, 44, 46, 49 .
  21. ↑ Beckett: Waiting for Godot . S. 46 ff .
  22. ↑ Beckett: Waiting for Godot . S. 80, 94 .
  23. ↑ Aleksandra Kwasnik, Florian Dreyßig: The wait goes on. Just keep going . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . May 11, 2010.
  24. ↑ Wolfgang Hildesheimer: About the absurd theater. A speech. In: ders .: plays. About the absurd theater . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1976, pp. 169-183. The speech was given in Erlangen in August 1960.
  25. ^ Miodrag Bulatovic, Godot has come , Munich: Hanser (1966).
  26. ↑ [1] . In: . ardmediathek.de. June 2, 2019. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
  27. ↑ Pierre Temkine (ed.): Waiting for Godot. The absurd and the story. Berlin 2008.
  28. ↑ Jörg Drews: The oh so! Experience. What Beckett's "Waiting For Godot" is really about. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung of November 17, 2008, p. 14.
  29. ↑ The Nazis and the Truth About Beckett's Godot. www.welt.de, accessed on November 26, 2013 .
  30. ^ Kindler's Neues Literatur Lexikon , Ba-Boc, page 380.
  31. ↑ Manuela Reichart: Late salvation of honor of a comedian duo. About Sven Hanuscheck: Laurel and Hardy. A revision. Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-552-05506-3 .
  32. ^ "Le sketch des Pensées de Pascal par les Fratellini", Arts, January 27, 1953; quoted after Deirdre Bair, Samuel Beckett. Traduit de l'anglais by Léo Dilé, Paris 1978.
  33. ↑ Ackerley, CJ and Gontarski, SE The Faber Companion to Samuel Beckett. New York: Grove Press, 2004. p. 232. Original English: “SB's standard answer to the question 'Who is Godot?' was, 'If I knew I wouldn't have written the play.' "
  34. ↑ Matthias Heine: The Nazis and the truth about Beckett's Godot. In: Die Welt, June 20, 2008, p. 21.
  35. ↑ Agnès Poirier, On the banks of the Seine, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart, 2019. ISBN 978-3-608-96401-1
  36. ↑ only sold as an online file in .pdf format
  37. ↑ High quality content, still available in many libraries