06 April 2009

"Alistair Cookie" revisits "Waiting for Godot"


“Beckett said to Peter Woodthorpe that he regretted calling the absent character ‘Godot’, because of all the theories involving God to which this had given rise. “I also told [Ralph] Richardson that if by Godot I had meant God I would [have] said God, and not Godot. This seemed to disappoint him greatly.”

That said, Beckett did once concede, “It would be fatuous of me to pretend that I am not aware of the meanings attached to the word ‘Godot’, and the opinion of many that it means ‘God’. But you must remember – I wrote the play in French, and if I did have that meaning in my mind, it was somewhere in my unconscious and I was not overtly aware of it.

2 comments:

  1. I love the video. I even remember seeing it when I was a kid or maybe when my kids saw it. I've been running across a lot of references to this play with "Godot." I need to track it down and read the original.

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