Theatre of the Absurd plots of many Absurdist plays feature characters in interdependent pairs, commonly either two males or a male and a female. Some Beckett scholars call this the "pseudocouple". The two characters may be roughly equal or have a begrudging interdependence (like Vladimir and Estragon in "Waiting for Godot" or the two main characters in "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead"); one character may be clearly dominant and may torture the passive character (like Pozzo and Lucky in "Waiting for Godot" or Hamm and Clov in "Endgame"); the relationship of the characters may shift dramatically throughout the play (as in Ionesco's "The Lesson"
Vladimir (Waiting for Godot) (with Zero Mostel as Estragon) and - in one rather notorious version of the play - Steve Martin (with Robin Williams as Estragon) and Patrick Stewart. In Tom Stoppard's "Godot" pastiche, "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead", the character Guildenstern closely resembles Vladimir. "Hand in hand from the top of the Eiffel Tower, among the first. We were respectable in those days. Now it's too late. They wouldn't even let us up." "Was I sleeping, while the others suffered? Am I sleeping now? Tomorrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of today? That with Estragon my