Editing Waiting for Godot (section)

== Adaptations ==
Beckett received numerous requests to adapt ''Waiting for Godot'' for film and television.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Damned to Fame: the Life of Samuel Beckett| last=Knowlson| first=James| publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|year=2014|isbn=9781408857663|location=London}}</ref> The author, however, resisted these offers, except for occasional approval out of friendship or sympathy for the person making the request. This was the case when he agreed to some televised productions in his lifetime (including a [[The Play of the Week|1961 American telecast]] with [[Zero Mostel]] as Estragon and [[Burgess Meredith]] as Vladimir that ''[[New York Times]]'' theatre critic [[Alvin Klein]] describes as having "left critics bewildered and is now a classic").<ref name="Klein" /> When Keep Films made Beckett an offer to film an adaptation in which [[Peter O'Toole]] would feature, Beckett tersely told his French publisher to advise them: "I do not want a film of ''Godot''."<ref>SB to Jérôme Lindon, 18 April 1967. Quoted in Knowlson, J., ''Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett'' (London: Bloomsbury, 1996), p. 545</ref> The [[BBC]] broadcast a television production of ''Waiting for Godot'' on 26 June 1961 ''(see [[#UK|above]])'', a version for radio having already been transmitted on 25 April 1960. Beckett watched the programme with a few close friends in Peter Woodthorpe's [[Chelsea, London|Chelsea]] flat. He was unhappy with what he saw. "My play", he said, "wasn't written for this box. My play was written for small men locked in a big space. Here you're all too big for the place."<ref>Interview with [[Peter Woodthorpe]], 18 February 1994. Referenced in Knowlson, J., ''Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett'' (London: Bloomsbury, 1996), pp. 487, 488</ref> One analysis argued that Beckett's opposition to alterations and creative adaptations stem from his abiding concern with audience reaction rather than proprietary rights over a text being performed.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Text & Presentation, 2006|last=Constantinidis|first=Stratos|publisher=McFarland|year=2007|isbn=9780786430772|location=Jefferson, NC|pages=16}}</ref>

On the other hand, theatrical adaptations have had more success. For instance, Andre Engel adapted the play in 1979 and was produced in Strasbourg. In this performance, the two main characters were fragmented into 10 characters. The first four involved Gogo, Didi, Lucky, and Pozzo while the rest were divided into three pairs: two tramps, a pair of grim heterosexuals, and a bride raped by her groom.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Samuel Beckett l'œvre carrefour/l'œuvre limite| last1=Buning| first1=Marius| last2=Engelberts| first2=Matthijs| last3=Houppermans| first3=Sjef| last4=Jacquart| first4=Emmanuel| publisher=Rodopi| year=1997| isbn=978-9042003477|location=Atlanta, GA|pages=56}}</ref> Each of these embodied some characteristics of Estragon and Vladimir. A similar approach was employed by Tamiya Kuriyama who directed his own adaptation of the play in Tokyo. These interpretations, which only used extracts from the dialogues of the original, focused on the minds of the urban-dwellers today, who are considered to be no longer individuals but one of the many or of the whole, which turned such individuals into machines.<ref name=":0" />

In 1991, Chinese avant-garde theatre director Meng Jinghui (b. 1964) adapted the play (''Dengdai Geduo'' in Chinese) for his master’s graduation performance at Central Academy of Drama, with unmistakable allusions to the [[1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre|Tiananmen Square protests in 1989]]. By using metatheatrical tropes, Meng’s adaptation not only condemned both the government and the protesters but expressed strong senses of disillusion and cynicism.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wang |first1=Hongjian |title=Theatre of ‘Disbelief’: Meng Jinghui’s Cynical Metatheatre in Contemporary China |journal=Asian Theater Journal |date=Fall 2020 |volume=37 |issue=2 |page=376 |doi=10.1353/atj.2020.0033}}</ref> Additionally, by dramatically changing the main characters and the ending—transforming the philosophical and sceptic Vladimir in the original script into a vengeful idealist-turned-cynic who strangled Godot to death, Meng captures the conflicted feelings of the Chinese generation born in the 1960s towards China’s socialist past.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wang |first1=Hongjian |title=The Uneasy Entanglement with the Socialist Legacy: Remapping Avant-Garde Theatre in Post-Socialist China |journal= Modern Chinese Literature and Culture |date=31 December 2024 |volume=36 |issue=2 |page=344 |doi=10.3366/mclc.2024.0061 }}</ref>

A web series adaptation titled ''[[While Waiting for Godot]]'' was also produced at [[New York University]] in 2013, setting the story among the modern-day [[Homelessness in New York|New York homeless]]. Directed by Rudi Azank, the English script was based on Beckett's original French manuscript of ''{{Lang|fr|En attendant Godot}}'' (the new title being an alternate translation of the French) prior to censorship from British publishing houses in the 1950s, as well as adaptation to the stage. Season 1 of the web series won Best Cinematography at the 2014 Rome Web Awards. Season 2 was released in Spring 2014 on the show's official website whilewaitingforgodot.com.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/cybertainment/2014/06/13/No-more-waiting-for-second-Web-series-Godot/stories/201406100167| title=Cybertainment: No more waiting for second Web series 'Godot'| work=[[Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]]| last=McCoy| first=Adrian| access-date=26 September 2014| archive-date=14 July 2014| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714180855/http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/cybertainment/2014/06/13/No-more-waiting-for-second-Web-series-Godot/stories/201406100167| url-status=live}}</ref>