On a country road in an unspecified location at an indeterminate time, Vladimir and Estragon wait for Godot. Neither knows who he is nor what they want from him. The collapse of reason looms large.

Waiting for Godot (En attendant Godot) by Samuel Beckett, translated from French by Elmar Tophoven

Premiere: March 28, 2025, 19:00 Introduction

Vladimir and Estragon await Godot, about whom they know nothing and from whom they desire nothing. Nobel laureate Samuel Beckett crafted this ambiguous and interpretatively rich work about waiting and the passage of time, a modern classic that the house director Claudia Bauer reinterprets.

In their waiting, Vladimir and Estragon engage in conversations to combat the silence, play games resembling everyday tasks, and simulate quarrels and reconciliations. Their monotony is interrupted by Pozzo, a whip-wielding master, and his servant Lucky, who performs chaotic monologues that pay homage to the downfall of reason.

Few stage works invite as much interpretation as "Waiting for Godot," having provoked an extensive array of interpretations. Samuel Beckett himself stated, "I don't know who Godot is. I also don't know if he exists. And I don't know if the two who await him believe in him or not." When the Nobel laureate wrote this modern classic in 1948, the horrors of World War II were still fresh, and the societal reckoning of the Holocaust was a taboo. The past of Vladimir and Estragon remains entirely open: were they, like their author, in the Resistance? Are they survivors of a (nuclear) catastrophe, who are reluctant to take charge of their destiny? Or do they represent, as Estragon says, "humanity, whether we like it or not" - a humanity afflicted by memory loss, unaware of its (co-)guilt? Or do they simply prefer the desolation of waiting over the necessity to act? Perhaps it is as Joachim Kaiser, one of the most influential theater critics of his time, put it, "everyone dreams their own dream about Beckett's nightmare article."

Directed by Claudia Bauer, recognized for her musical and slapstick-infused productions, who is now the house director at the Residenztheater.

Note: This performance will feature strobe lighting.