Exactly 50 years after its premiere, Samuel Beckett's timeless masterpiece can still transcend all barriers and nationalities
Peter Hall
Wednesday August 24, 2005
The Guardian
It's August 1955, and the first night of the English-language premiere of Waiting for Godot. We're in the Arts Theatre, London. Two raggedy figures in bowler hats are at the corner of the stage. The sadder of the two is absolute.
"Nobody comes. Nobody goes. It's awful."
At this point a loud, very English, voice intervenes from the stalls: "Hear! Hear!" And clearly some of the audience agree. The next few moments of the play are drowned in cheers and louder counter-cheers. The Godot controversy has begun.
Contrast this with
August 2005. At the Theatre Royal, Bath, it's the first preview of a
new production of Waiting for Godot, which is celebrating its 50th
anniversary. The performance has not yet started, and the house is
packed. A middle-aged lady with a penetrating voice is insisting: "Of
course, we all absolutely adored doing it for A-levels ..." The
play begins and at first is heard in reverential silence - as befits an
A-level title. The audience knows it is witnessing a modern classic, a
turning point in world drama, written by a Nobel prize-winning master.
They may also remember that this play topped the list in the vote for
the 100 best plays at the National Theatre. It is not to be trifled
with. On
this evening, 50 years after Godot's premiere, the audience initially
brings to the performance too much respect, too much awe. Beckett tries
to avoid this by consistently flicking his audience with provocative
insults. "I've been better entertained," says one tramp. "Charming evening we're having," says the other. "And it's not over yet," comes the reply. Gradually
the Bath audience dissolves: laughter is everywhere and intellectual
solemnity vanishes. It is easier for the audience to listen, easier for
them to think, easier for them to be moved once they laugh. Indeed,
however disturbing Beckett may be, there is always a laugh round the
corner. I
directed the English world premiere of this great play exactly 50 years
ago and I was there on that tumultuous first night. I was 24 years old
and I suspect landed the play because no one else would do it. It had
been turned down by most of the acting profession, including Gielgud,
Richardson and Guinness. And it was rejected by directors without
number. I still wake up wondering what would have become of my life if
I had turned it down. It changed everything. It
is often thought that 1956 and the first night of John Osborne's Look
Back in Anger began the reinvention of British theatre. To an extent
this is true. But Godot was possibly a greater influence. It is
certainly true that Osborne inspired a generation of young writers. All
this was wonderful, but his play was nonetheless faintly parochial and
old-fashioned in technique, which Godot certainly was not. Look Back in
Anger was a play formed by the careful naturalism of the 30s and the
craft beloved by the old repertory theatres. It now looks dated and
prolix because it uses the convention of the old well-made play. I
think that my generation heard more political revolution in it than was
actually there - largely because we desperately needed to. By
contrast, Waiting for Godot hasn't dated at all. It remains a
masterpiece transcending all barriers and all nationalities. And it
could have been written today: there is nothing of the 50s about it. It
is the start of modern drama and it gave the theatre back its
metaphorical power. Godot
challenged and then removed 100 years of literal naturalism where a
room could only be considered a room if it was presented in full detail
with the fourth wall removed. Godot provided an empty stage, with a
tree and two figures who waited each day and yet had to survive. Godot
no longer seems obscure. The worshippers at our first preview in Bath
were the exception, not the rule, and subsequent performances have been
laced with laughter and understanding. This
is the fourth time that I have directed the play and I'm often asked
how the productions have differed. I don't know. A production is
created by a group of actors and a director making an honest response
to a play at a certain time in a certain place. It differs and should
differ. Godot becomes clearer by the year and less "absurdist" - the
convenient label which tagged its initial mysteries. From that August evening in London 50 years ago, the play went round the world and its success continues. When
in 1955 the play transferred to the Criterion (a public theatre
governed by the licensing authorities), the lord chamberlain - censor
of the day - busily exercised his blue pencil. Beckett was amazed that
in England, the cradle of free speech, the theatre - unlike books or
broadcasting or film - was heavily censored by the government. The
lord chamberlain was very disturbed by the word "erection" and insisted
it be removed. There were several attempts to ban the play altogether.
A letter from Lady Dorothy Howitt was recently released under the
Freedom of Information Act. It asked the lord chamberlain to ban the
play: "One of the many themes running through the play is the desire of
two old tramps continually to relieve themselves. Such a dramatisation
of lavatory necessities is offensive and against all sense of British
decency." Controversy
still haunts Beckett and Godot. It saddens me greatly that both the
Royal Court Theatre and my own company are, from the beginning of
September, prevented by the Barbican Centre and the Gate Theatre,
Dublin, from giving performances of any plays by Beckett in London in
the foreseeable future. At
a time when Sam should be universally celebrated as his centenary
approaches, they have all the rights in the plays for their own big
Beckett centenary festival in April next year and insist on this
moratorium. So no one else may celebrate Sam's life and work in London
from next week onwards. Sam would have found such a situation very
whimsical. · Peter
Hall is a theatre, opera and film director; the Peter Hall Company is
resident at the Theatre Royal, Bath, until September 3