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Waiting for Godot
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{{short description|Play by Samuel Beckett}} {{use British English|date=May 2011}}{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2020}} {{Infobox play | name = Waiting for Godot | image = En attendant Godot, Festival d'Avignon, 1978 f22.jpg | image_size = | caption = ''En attendant Godot'', staging by Otomar Krejca, Avignon Festival, 1978 | writer = [[Samuel Beckett]] | characters =[[Vladimir (Waiting for Godot)|Vladimir]]<br />[[Estragon]]<br />[[Pozzo (Waiting for Godot)|Pozzo]]<br />[[Lucky (Waiting for Godot)|Lucky]]<br /> A Boy | mute = Godot | premiere = {{Start date and age|1953|01|05|df=yes}} | place = {{interlanguage link|Théâtre de Babylone|fr}}, Paris | orig_lang = French | genre = [[Tragicomedy]] (play) }} '''''Waiting for Godot''''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|ɡ|ɒ|d|oʊ|audio=en-us-Godot2.oga}} {{respell|GOD|oh}} or {{IPAc-en|ɡ|ə|ˈ|d|oʊ|audio=en-us-Godot.oga}} {{respell|gə|DOH}}<ref>{{cite web |last=Piepenburg |first=Erik |url=http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/anthony-page-of-waiting-for-godot-teaches-us-how-to-pronounce-its-title/ |title=Anthony Page of ''Waiting for Godot'' Teaches Us How to Pronounce Its Title |date=30 April 2009 |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=March 26, 2024 |quote=Well GOD-dough is what Samuel Beckett said. Also, the word has to echo Pozzo. That's the right pronunciation. Go-DOUGH is an Americanism, which isn’t what the play intended. |archive-date=19 January 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120119164731/http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/anthony-page-of-waiting-for-godot-teaches-us-how-to-pronounce-its-title/ |url-status=live }}</ref>) is a 1953 play by Irish writer and playwright [[Samuel Beckett]], in which the two main characters, [[Vladimir (Waiting for Godot)|Vladimir]] (Didi) and [[Estragon]] (Gogo), engage in a variety of discussions and encounters while awaiting the titular Godot, who never arrives.<ref name="NYT-20131112">{{cite news|last=Itzkoff|first=Dave|author-link=Dave Itzkoff|title=The Only Certainty Is That He Won't Show Up|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/theater/the-right-way-to-say-godot.html|date=12 November 2013|work=The New York Times|access-date=12 November 2013|archive-date=30 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200730062053/https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/theater/the-right-way-to-say-godot.html|url-status=live}}</ref> ''Waiting for Godot'' is Beckett's reworking of his own original French-language play '''''{{Lang|fr|En attendant Godot}}''''', and is subtitled (in English only) "'''A tragicomedy in two acts.'''" It is widely considered his finest work of literature and regarded by literary critics as one of the most enigmatic plays of the [[Literary modernism|Modern era]].<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26468121|title=False Innocence in ''Waiting for Godot''|first1=Eric |last1=P. Levy|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|journal=Journal of Beckett Studies|page=19-36|year=1994 |location=Scotland|volume=3|ISSN=03095207}}</ref>{{sfn|Ackerley|Gontarski|2006|page=620}} In a public poll conducted by the British [[Royal National Theatre]] in the year 1998, ''Waiting for Godot'' was voted as "the most significant English-language play of the 20th century."{{sfn|Berlin|1999}}<ref>[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/waiting-for-godot-voted-best-modern-play-in-english-1178953.html "''Waiting for Godot'' voted best modern play in English"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171005201909/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/waiting-for-godot-voted-best-modern-play-in-english-1178953.html |date=5 October 2017 }} by David Lister, ''[[The Independent]]'', 18 October 1998</ref><ref>{{cite journal|journal=[[New Theatre Quarterly]]|title=NT 2000: the Need to Make Meaning|first=Aleks|last=Sierz|author-link=Aleks Sierz|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ATmWcLXdJKsC&pg=PA192|volume=16|issue=2|pages=192–193|editor-first1=Clive|editor-last1=Barker|editor-first2=Simon|editor-last2=Trussler|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2000|doi=10.1017/S0266464X00013713|isbn=9780521789028|s2cid=191153800|access-date=27 May 2020|archive-date=21 May 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240521013118/https://books.google.com/books?id=ATmWcLXdJKsC&pg=PA192#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live|url-access=subscription}}</ref> The original French text was composed between 9 October 1948 and 29 January 1949.{{sfn|Ackerley|Gontarski|2006|p=172}} The [[premiere]], directed by [[Roger Blin]], was on 5 January 1953 at the {{interlanguage link|Théâtre de Babylone|fr}}, Paris. The English-language version of the play premiered in London in 1955.
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