WAITRESS

In Samuel Beckett’s acknowledged, seminal tragicomedy,’Waiting for Godot’. We follow the allegory of doomed souls ESTRAGON and VLADMIR as they wander the bleak and unforgiving netherworld, Beckett has created as a staging post on the journey to Hell. The two hapless men inhabit the bare bones of the human condition. Stripped of all hope and bereft of joy they struggle to find a reason to exist. There is no comfort, no relief from the constant ardour of strife. No Food or warmth. No rest, not even the illusory escape of dreaming. It is a relentless gauntlet of endurance and despair. There is a small pinprick of light in their bleak future, that is the awaited arrival of the mysterious Godot. Who,why or what Godot is expected to bring to them, and their vague and precarious existences is never fully explained. Similarly, none of their specific expectations are conveyed to the audience, there is however,a general unspoken feeling that somehow Godot has the power to make their situation better. On a larger stage, Beckett seems to be suggesting,their existence alone is a proving of the power of faith. The cannon of faith, Beckett seems to be suggesting, is the pivot on which the vagaries of a religious heaven and hell are balanced, and it is this allegory perhaps, that sits most comfortably on the weary shoulders of the protagonists. The waiting for the day of judgement and the unspecified connotations of Armageddon While ESTROGEN and Vladmir are involved in such weighty matters. Beset by all manner of misfortune that normally only circus clowns fall foul of, what then of those they have left behind? 34. Do they have family or girlfriends somewhere waiting in turn, for these who wait? How too, in contemporary times could we realise a staging of the Underworld? Perhaps by adding several extra rings that even Milton would have found trouble imagining. Containing faux celebrities, binge drinking, big brother, over population, global warming and the attendant mindless miasma of modern life, and how would their girlfriends spend their time as they waited? Perhaps like two waitresses.....