Warten auf Godot

Josefstädter Strasse 26

1080 Wien

 

In the translation from French by Elmar Tophoven, 1953
(Revised version by Erika Tophoven, 1993)

ESTRAGONWhat should we do now that we are happy?
VLADIMIRWe are waiting for Godot.
ESTRAGONOh yes…

Waiting for Godot - written in the shadow of the great war, in times of helplessness and discouragement. Past?
Today, more than ever, people are waiting for rescue, for salvation from the great fear of wars, epidemics, destruction, the progressive end of the world, the apocalypse.
And us? Aren't we all like "Wladimir" and "Estragon", sad clowns, waiting, playing, on the side of the country road, ended up in the middle of nowhere? Contemporaries and magicians at the same time. The path is the goal, the imagination shows the way. And love. Then it goes on and on again.
A game of wrestling, falling, getting up, starting again –

And “Godot” – is he really the long-awaited savior? Or is it the mysterious “Pozzo”, on the way – where? – with his unfortunate servant, who is also called “Lucky”? Redemption or evil mockery?
We wait, laugh and cry with them, hoping for our "Godot" - or has he come long ago?

After Bernhard's The German Lunch Table and Ionesco's The King Dies in the Kammerspiele, Claus Peymann is staging the film for the third time in his new "home", the Theater in der Josefstadt.

(Source: josefstadt.org)