Beckett’s best known work, Waiting for Godot is a finely wrought tragicomedy exploring the battle between the futility of life and the fundamental human desire to survive. Two men are engaged in a perpetual, pointless exchange that parodies the human condition. Storytelling becomes a means of passing the time as Vladimir and Estragon wait for Godot. The banal, everyday language of their exchanges takes on a universal significance. Godot can be seen as representing any form of transcendental meaning or purpose to life, and it is of crucial significance that the entity that is Godot is never manifested.
Godot is written with great rigour and definition, says director Michael Lindsay Hogg. Beckett creates an amazing blend of comedy, high wit and an almost unbearable poignancy in a funny yet heartbreaking image of man’s fate. With the camera, you can pick those moments and emphasise them, making Beckett’s rare and extraordinary words all the more intimate. (With: Stephen Brennan, Barry McGovern, Sam McGovern, Johnny Murphy, Alan Stanford. 120 mins.)