Theatre and Language: Samuel Beckett, 'Waiting for Godot' - Professor Belinda Jack

Beckett's Waiting for Godot has been interpreted in myriad ways. Some claim it is a work that explores the bleak absurdism of human life. Others have argued that it is an allegory of various kinds. These will be explored, but also the question as to what is it about the play that lends itself to such diverse interpretations? Plays are more than language. Is it in the relationship between language and the other aspects of theatre craft that the most convincing interpretation of the play lies?

[snakeboy]

My little thingy about waiting for godot has always been that "vladimir" and "estragon" are not random or absurd names but very intentional. Vladimir is the most common name in eastern europe. Estragon is the french word for tarragon, the implication being that his mother simply saw the word "estragon" in a cookbook and thought it sounded pretty i.e. a common stereotype of the lower class. Vladimir is a stock immigrant, a foreigner, and estragon is for lack of a better word "ghetto trash". Left behind by the culture the play debuted in.

[Poemsapennyeach]

Levelled headed informative lecture. Thanks. Vivien Mercer was a friend of my fathers and my friend J. grew up in Beckett's old family home in Foxrock, Dublin.

[wendywatson]

Thank you most sincerely for a highly illuminating and thought-provoking lecture on a play that I have always loved, taught often, and delight constantly in finding new ways to think about it, but also to hold true to so much of what I respect Beckett for as an artist and playwright, and for sharing his perceptions with the world.

[penelopegreene]

For some reason this particular video has a problem with its volume. No worry, I'll wait. Surely Gresham will fix it tomorrow...

[gonzogil]

Also, the way "I am happy, and You are Happy" are interpreted matters. You could play it with the absence of strength, and energy that poor, exhausted, and war torned people would display given they are being pushed out of existence, and playing it with less energy, and slowing down the tempo you would get something like "I am happý"...."You are happy"...."What do we do now that we are happy" as if stranged from the very same emotional accomplishment they had supposed to have undergone. A promise of happiness they accepted but left them lacking, wondering what was this ghost of a promise of happiness people were so intense about. Some happiness, some type of mental lie into which to insert yourself that in no way addresses other essential needs etc. What both interpretations of Godot have in common is that they are played as if the characters had the strength of chads that just came out of a gym. The tempo and fullness of sound that Beckett insisted was the guiding axiom of all his work is killed in the process. You can make an artistic choice you like, but Beckett's influences, his background, and the axioms he offers do allow for a presentation of the work where what is conveyed is primordial, fundamental, small in dosages, but crucial pillars upon which human may, or may not stand. And this reading of Beckett, this way of presenting his work is prohibited to the point where "Scholars on Beckett" like David Pattie censored the fact that a tree appears in one scene without leaves, and in the other with leaves. This clearly indicates cosmological, or, nature's clock independent of the characters offering a degree of objectivity. But Pattie thinks this is nonsense, because for him, in order to make sense, the audience needs to camp inside the theater for four months until spring arrives. It is pretty bad the level of censoring.

[sombrezaafi]

That is an amazing lecture, ma'am. Very well researched and articulated. Loved it.

[xyzllii]

Thanks again Prof. Belinda Jack. Very interesting. ps..But the quote...'silent as a flight of birds' is hilarious. The author obviously has never seen the flight of Starlings or Crows.

[Erkynar]

Wonderful lecture. Thank you so much. Now, of course, I have to read the damned thing in french...

[michaelskydancer]

Wonderful lecture; just wondering who "Molly" and "Maloney" are?

[TheBrendanio]

Ok good lecture but can someone please explain why she pronounces Molloy as Molly and Malone as Malone-y?

[edwardprice]

What is....Waiting for Godot was the final question on "JEOPARDY" today, 11/14/2017
One of the 3 got it right. At 17.26 mark.

[gonzogil]

36:14 Again, you can restrict it to his main influence: Dante, Baudelaire, (he spoke Italian, and French) the Dadaists, Descartes (the mind) Joyce (modern myth, and the human mind again) etc. Restrict it, and see how he attempted, having nurtured himself from that context, to contribute something novel.

[gonzogil]

Yes, as a political economist that read a bit on psy-ops (logistics of perception by Virillo among others) it is interesting to see the timing of this interpretation of Beckett. I am pretty sure the people involved in the performances were paid handsomely, and this reflected itself on the ticket prices. The timing is interesting aka the degree of homelessness since 2008 world-wide. But these are not isolated, but rather systemic expressions of the propaganda system, you also have Zero Dark Thirty, or Roma, or The Apprentice (celebrating the guy that will push your family one step closer to the edge of material existence. I have heard he has been doing something else. Right after Capital as Media saw his star potential), and the usual illusory wholling operations like the Boston presentation of "Voices of a People´s History" so 1percenters would cloak themselves as leftists a yr when leftists economists (Dean Baker since 2002) were detecting the gaps on the bubble approach to the economy. People that finance the likes of Bush Jr, Foxx "You will never work on this town again..." as radical leftists. Pretty out in the open. Perfect timing to mock the homeless.

[gonzogil]

35:30min But she must be aware that everyone from painters (dadaist movement including poetry) all they way to writers like Joyce were influenced by the set of revolutionary breakthroughs in psychoanalysis. Beckett lived in France, and translated poetry by Breton, and read Descartes (glimmers of the paranoiac mechanisms of the mind appearing in his meditations). He must have heard of Lacan, Picasso, and Salvador Dali. They would attempt to write in ways that would address the unconscious of the reader. There were other types of revolutions taking place. From Einstein, and quantum mechanics, to the second industrial revolution, to the revolution in psychoanalysis, and in art, and the October Revolution, not only in Russia, but attempts were made in what ended up as fascist Spain, Germany, and Italy etc

[thebookdoc.writing.and.editing]

BS like this is why I walked out of the first seminar I attended in the PhD program I was accepted into, thanked the professor, and went and withdrew from the program.

[gonzogil]

45:30aprox Noise, noise does not mean, or, signify, poems, and novels, or short-stories signify like music may signify, it may move you. All these people are too desperate to censor Beckett. Quite the level of hatred displayed for the man. No shift has been made since he was censored in Ireland for his first book "More Pricks than Kicks" revenge claims Pattie, truth or incest" the answer is clear from the brave.

[kermitfrog]

I think all professors should be forced to perform in the plays they're going to lecture on before coming up with their lecture.

[wasifjalal]

can one form a link between sufism and this play?

[VictorFinnigan]

I don't think the stone age people waited for Godot.

[msvalkyrie]

I wonder at what point did Beckett realise that he could pass off any old drivel ( ie
Endgame etc ) as vitally important works of 20 th century drama. ?
He probably hadn't realised quite how gullible our theatre critics were at the time of writing Godot.? Must have come as a pleasant surprise....?