Thank you for attending my retirement production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. This is my third Beckett production, and each show has been an exhilarating experience working with actors on such demanding scripts and unusual theatrics. Waiting for Godot is considered Beckett’s masterwork, and I’m forever grateful to this cast, this production team and to the new Department of Theatre and Dance for giving me the chance to conjure the mystical forces, the profound humor, and the wisdom at play in this script.​

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Written in 1949 after his experience fighting in the French Resistance during WWII, Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot was first performed in 1953, it is widely regarded as one of the most influential and important plays of the 20th century. Its impact continues to resonate in the arts, literature, philosophy, and popular culture of today.

 

The play has had a significant impact on the world of theater. Waiting for Godot is often cited as a key example of the "Theater of the Absurd," a movement that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s and sought to break free from traditional narrative structures and explore the absurdity of human existence. Waiting for Godot has also had a lasting impact on popular culture. The play’s characters and themes have been referenced and parodied in countless films, TV shows, and novels. The play's famous refrain, "Nothing to be done," has become a cultural catchphrase and is often used to describe situations of uncertainty or helplessness.

 

As communities around the world are increasingly destabilized by injustice, violence, extreme weather, and uncertainties as to what is fact or fiction, the characters in this play, the questions they ask, the need they have to find purpose in their day to day are as meaningful today as when they were first uttered. Just like Didi and Gogo, when our circumstances get to the point where we believe we can’t go on, we can with the help of others.  We can go on, we do go on, and we must go on.