Waiting for Godot / En Attendant Godot

From an inauspicious beginning at the tiny Left Bank Theatre de Babylone in 1953, followed by bewilderment among American and British audiences, Waiting for Godot has become one of the most important and enigmatic plays of the past fifty years and a cornerstone of twentieth-century drama. As Clive Barnes wrote, "Time catches up with genius.... Waiting for Godot is one of the masterpieces of the century." Subtitled "a tragicomedy in two acts," and once famously described by the Irish critic Vivian Mercier as a play in which "nothing happens, twice," Waiting for Godot is also a play that was written twice.
Beckett wrote the play in French and then translated it into English. In doing so Beckett revised, eliminated, and added various passages. With side-by-side text, the reader can experience the mastery of Beckett's language and explore its nuances. Upon being asked who Godot is, Samuel Beckett told director Alan Schneider, "If I knew, I would have said so in the play." Although we may never know who Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for, in this special edition we rediscover one of the most poignant and humorous allegories of our time.