“I know the mythology around it says ‘nothing happens, twice’, but in fact a lot happens in the play. It is actually a play of incredible action – it’s just that that action is about waiting, and is about suspension,” explains Canberra actor P J Williams, who is playing Estragon (Gogo) in The Street Theatre’s new production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.
Written between October 1948 and January 1949, in a Paris still recovering from the trauma of German occupation during World War II, Waiting for Godot – a classic of the Theatre of the Absurd – is a compelling and darkly comic exploration of the uselessness but stubborn perseverance of hope. Its circular structure – the main characters make no progression towards their goals at any point, ending up exactly where they began as the play ends – can also be read as a commentary about the meaninglessness of human existence.
