“Godotmania”
Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot completely changed our perception of theatre as a whole, thanks in part to the unique and unusual path it took on the wide map of theater. It is perhaps those two words, unique and unusual, that best describe everything we associate with the drama, from its obscure plot and characters, all the way to the stories told of its curious production history. It is safe to assume that when Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot was first released, nobody had expected that a nonsensical ‘adventures’ of two senile old men and their ludicrous inactivity would go on to have such an impact on theater. Ever since its release, the play had been treated as somewhat of an outlier, giving headaches to producers and actors alike. However, the few that had successfully tackled the production of such an absurd drama, can vouch for its importance. There have been numerous reports of “peculiar” instances when Godot was brought to the spotlight, each adding their own flavor to the play, resulting in the belief of some that these unconventional stage shows were exactly what gave the otherwise monotonous drama its edge. Several of these productions were put on by inmates of various prisons across the globe, further defining the history of the play. Godot changed the scene in a completely unexpected manner, one that the critics who saw the debut of the drama back in 1953, in Paris could not have possibly predicted. The aim of this essay is to introduce the