Waiting for Godot as a capitalist-aristocrat, and Lucky as labour-proletarian. This prompted Beckett to issue a rare statement, stating that the reaction was based on a misconception of the play. To Beckett, the play tries to not be able to be defined. The New York showing of the play was well-received with critics. Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times praised Lahr for his performance as Estragon. Waiting for Godot Waiting for Godot ( ) is a play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo), wait for the arrival of someone named Godot who never arrives, and while
Samuel Beckett though he in fact broke off from the existentialist movement and founded his own philosophy). Though many of the themes are similar, Beckett had little affinity for existentialism as a whole. Broadly speaking, the plays deal with the subject of despair and the will to survive in spite of that despair, in the face of an uncomprehending and incomprehensible world. The words of Nell—one of the two characters in "Endgame" who are trapped in ashbins, from which they occasionally peek their heads to speak—can best summarize the themes of the plays of Beckett's middle period: "Nothing is funnier than unhappiness,