Contents

Information

To be directed by Michael Picardie; on stage at Chapter 13th to 17th May 2008

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Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Introduction
A Tree

Everyman Theatre sets the great tragi-comedy of the 20th century in war-torn Europe. If two tramps understood Lucky as the suffering servant, as white-haired as Mr Godot’s beard, they might be saved from a world where God-or-Godot turned his face away from mankind. A willow tree foliates miraculously all in one night and transforms a cross into weeping branches not only in sorrow but in hope. Vladimir and Estragon will go on surviving and Lucky will lead Pozzo out of arrogance into acceptance of a human fate. There is clowning along the way.

Audition information

Auditions were held in January. The cast list will be posted here as soon as I have one.

Also, volunteer to help as backstage crew and as stage manager in the box and come to auditions if you want to understudy.

Dramatis Personae

Vladimir a tramp, oldish in the original but can be played by a younger actor, male. Speaks in poetic Irish-cadenced English and perhaps some French (from the original script). Perhaps he has one Russian-émigré and one Irish parent and was brought up in Paris by the latter.
Estragon a tramp, ex-Parisian poet, hence his or her name derived from inspiringly spicy tarragon, also perhaps an émigré background like Beckett’s own, oldish in the original but can also be played by a younger actor, male. With an Irish or Wales or English regional accent and some French (from the original script).
Pozzo a land-owner and slave-master, oldish in the original but can be played by a younger actor, male. He may wear a Nazi tunic, a bowler hat and harlequin tights or trousers because of the setting reconstructed from Beckett’s life based on Deidre Keir’s biography and Pozzo’s relationship to the commedia dell arte tradition — if this is something practicable for this type of production. Pozzo may play with a French or English accent and prance like Harlequin.
Lucky Pozzo’s slave, in this production, may be dressed like the historical portrayal of a persecuted and embittered person or of a Pierrot. Here he may be a Jew: homberg or large bowler hat over skull-cap, long white wig, perhaps concentration-camp striped prison clothes and a number on the tunic, and bleeding, bare and freezing feet. Everything in an implicit understanding of Beckett in the situation of the time suggests that it was the Jew as the useful, dispensable, revengeful and ultimately heroic slave whom the playwright may have had in mind.
Boy A symbol of hope, she or he brings the same message every day that Mr Godot cannot come today which in V’s and E’s minds is an unspecificed deal which will save them.

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