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Waiting
for Godot was written in French in 1949. In the first scene, two men,
Vladimir and Estragon, wait on a lonely country road for an appointment
with Godot. After a while Pozzo enters, leading Lucky on a rope. They
talk. Godot fails to arrive. The second scene is a mirror image of the first.
The Irish critic Vivian Mercier called Waiting
for Godot a play in which 'nothing happens, twice'. 'Astride
of a grave in a difficult birth. Down in the hole, lingeringly, the grave-digger
puts on the forceps. We have time to grow old. The air is full of our
cries. [He listens.] But habit is a great deadener.' New
Yorker Michael Lindsay-Hogg's
film credits as director include Let it Be, Two of Us, Alone, Frankie Starlight, Running Mates, The Object
of Beauty and The Strange Case
of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, amongst many others. '[In
Waiting for Godot] Beckett creates
an amazing blend of comedy, high wit and an almost unbearable poignancy
in a funny yet heartbreaking image of man's fate. With the camera, you
can pick those moments and emphasise them, making Beckett's rare and extraordinary
words all the more intimate.'
Barry McGovern (Vladimir) is a former member of the RTÉ Players and the Abbey Theatre
Company. With a wide experience in theatre, film, radio and television,
Barry has also written music for many shows, co-written two musicals and
directed plays and operas for a number of companies. Recent stage work
includes The Shadow of a Gunman; Noises Off; The Pirates of Penzance; Twelfth
Night, Dancing
at Lughnasa and Endgame.
Films include Riders
to The Sea, Joe Versus the Volcano,
Billy Bathgate, Far and Away, Braveheart, The Disappearance of Finbar, The Informant, Miracle at Midnight and Sparrow's
Trap. He most recently worked with director Atom Egoyan on Felicia's Journey. Barry had major international
success with his award-winning one-man Beckett show I'll Go On, which the Gate Theatre
presented at the 1985 Dublin Theatre Festival. 'Waiting for Godot is probably the most accessible of Beckett's plays,' says Barry. 'It's like Mozart – too easy for children, too difficult for adults. I remember my stepson saying: "I know what Godot is about. It's about these two men waiting for somebody who never arrives." That's it! There are ramifications in all sorts of directions, overtones and undertones, but that is basically what it's about. 'Some
people think of Beckett as a very negative writer. I think he's a positive
writer. The last three words of [his novel] The Unnameable are: "I'll go on"
– "You must go on; I can't go on; I'll go on."' Johnny Murphy (Estragon)
starred as the sax player in the hit film The Commitments. His appearances at the Gate include productions of
Arrah-na-Pogue and The Saints Go Cycling In. For the Gate
Theatre's Beckett Festival at the Lincoln Centre in New York and at The
Barbican Centre in London (1991, 1996 and 1999) he appeared in Waiting For Godot, Ohio Impromptu and Catastrophe. Recent theatre credits include productions of As You Like It, Buddelia, I Do Not Like Thee, Dr Fell, Brothers
of the Brush, A Picture of Paradise,
At Swim Two Birds and The Passion
of Jerome. Film credits include
Angela's Ashes, The War of the Buttons, Into the West, I Went Down and
Fools of Fortune. Stephen Brennan (Lucky) began his acting career in 1971 at the Gate Theatre, Dublin, in The Barretts of Wimpole Street. Since then he has appeared in more than 50 leading and supporting roles in productions including Brian Friel's Living Quarters, Tom Murphy's Morning After Optimism, Brian Moore's Emperor of Ice-cream and Tom Kilroy's Talbot Box, which transferred to the Royal Court, among numerous others. He has also worked in television and film.
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