Actual belly laughs. One is that the entire evening is devoted to the incomparable explication that no one — or, if you prefer, nothing — is coming to save us as we crawl from birth to death, so that if you are not actually enjoying yourself as you wait for the moment when your heart stops, then what, dear reader, is the point of your brief stay on this planet?
The other is that, when faced with the above, a sense of humor thus metastasizes into active rebellion. Rea and Monaghan are famous stage actors in Ireland, and so is Rory Nolan, who powers his way through a rather terrifying Pozzo, one of the visitors to the spot where the tramps wait, alongside Lucky Garrett Lombard , who is anything but.
Rea is tall, in possession of a rising tenor and a quizzical, techie demeanor, kind of a Cupertino Vladimir you might say. Monaghan is shorter, barkier, more intense.
It is a reminder that contrasts always work best in the theater when the director is willing to subvert them, and, of course, of the physical mastery over their bodies that these actors enjoy. She has to have the tree, of course, but she also has the aura of a museum exhibition, or an operating theater or a sense memory or whatever, really, you want to feel as you watch its border of white light blazing as nobody comes, nobody goes and life goes on and on and on.
Vladimir and Estragon feel that they must continue living because death and the separation that it risks are too dangerous, or rather, obscure. However there is more. They realize that while committing suicide may grant them temporary control over life, the state of being dead will throw them into a condition of helplessness once more.
Therefore, Vladimir and Estragon feel as if they lack control in life and in death. The way in which this sentiment is conveyed is tragicomic due to its ability to speak to the audience on two different levels. Whereas death can be controlled to a certain extent, time is something which no one can exert any control over. Our attempts to organize time and to control its speed are mere illusions—time has no schedule, and it continues on despite our regulations. This does not mean, however, that our own perception of time cannot be altered.
If one is busy, time appears to go by quickly; if one is idle, it goes by slowly. In Waiting for Godot, the tragic element in regards to time is that Vladimir and Estragon are idle. They spend the entire play waiting around for another man.
Anyone who has spent a long amount of time waiting on another person knows how torturous it can be. The comedic relief is in their attempts to occupy themselves:. Trying on a pair of boots can take no more than a few minutes, and is therefore, not going to occupy the pair for very long. They will soon have to find yet another way to entertain themselves. Essentially, Vladimir and Estragon are slaves to time in their constant state of waiting. It is tragic because they are no longer free to live their lives on their own terms.
The pair recognize their own enslavement and rather than attempting to fight it by walking away , they choose to operate within its frame by filling up the space with meaningless, yet humorous, activity. Neither Vladimir nor Estragon has any control over when Godot will appear; they are waiting helplessly at the mercy of another.
Even if one does not care for the characters, he or she can sense their own similar condition in life and lament for themselves. Nevertheless, Beckett seems to be aware how heavy such an acknowledgement is, and so, he infuses their waiting with bits of subtle comedy:. If most people were to spend entire days waiting for someone else, they would most likely remember that they were doing so.
Moreover, they would probably be infuriated that the person had not yet come. Therefore, it is slightly amusing that Estragon frequently forgets that they are waiting for Godot. Vladimir and Estragon, however, frequently feel that they lack control over themselves.
It is in the latter sense, that these characters lack self- control. They frequently express the desire to do a particular thing, but are unable to make themselves do it. These instances are almost always tragicomic.
In the relationship between Vladimir and Estragon, this inability of the two to control themselves is particularly obvious. Each frequently expresses a desire to leave the other:. He does not move Beckett 1. Ironically, Estragon says one thing and does another. It is the contradiction between the spoken word and the stage directions that provides the humor. He expresses the desire to leave but lacks the control over himself to actually do so. It should be noted here that Beckett wrote Godot in French originally, so the French wordplay of the joke would be relevant.
In this version, the Englishman chooses a hair color, say redhead, and enters a door with that label. He then must choose between small, medium, and large. Pozzo gets up and goes over beside Estragon. Estragon points off. Enter Vladimir, somber. He shoulders Lucky out of his way, kicks over the stool, comes and goes agitatedly. This joke references an old theatre joke in which, as Lowe explains 16 , two men are bored at the theatre. One leaves to go to the bathroom, asking the other to save his seat.
The other instructs him to go down the corridor. Eventually the man, unable to find a bathroom, relieves himself into a potted plant found behind a door. Upon return, his friend tells him what a shame it is that he missed the best part in which a man urinated into the potted plant on stage. Beckett has done here what he does with the entire play, and turned misfortune into something comical.
Their humor is often bizarre and it would not be surprising in the least if they made a show with as much repetition as Godot.
There is a scene in act two the revolves around the trying on of hats:. Estragon takes his hat. Vladimir adjusts his hat on his head. Estragon adjusts his hat on his head. This scene is very similar to a scene in which Tim, Eric, and their common collaborator and guest star Zach Galifianakis are drinking glasses of water. Tim then comments that he could use some more water, and asks from some from Zach, eventually pouring all of the water into his glass.
This gets repeated between the three for quite some time. The simplicity and absurdity of the humor used in the hat scene is present in the water scene as well.
The jokes, though old, are still alive today. Comedy is not the same for everyone. Some jokes appeal to certain types of people based on class, gender, age, or any other number or dividing characteristics. Some require investigation to understand the context and be appreciated. Others are simple, quick, and unashamed, able to be appreciated by almost everyone. It is multi-dimensional humor that goes beyond searching for laughs from the audience.
It is humor that evokes emotion, promotes themes, and is timeless. The play itself is joke according to its own author. He truly has created his own large dirty joke: compelling audiences to watch to men sit around, wait, and represent the futility of life, and — here comes the punch line, always the unexpected — making it something to laugh at. Beckett, Samuel. No page numbers were used as an electronic version of the play was used, with no page distinctions.
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