The Actor's Nightmare actress Ellen tells him that it is a Samuel Beckett play called "Checkmate" (which seems to have elements of the plays "Endgame", "Happy Days", and "Waiting for Godot"). Literally forced on stage, George attempts to improvise his lines; however, the play inconsistently shifts between scenes from "Private Lives", "Hamlet", "Checkmate", and "A Man for All Seasons". When forced to improvise a soliloquy in the "Hamlet" scene, George tells the audience that he was raised in a Catholic school and was interested in joining a monastery but they told him to wait until he was older. When he was older, however,
Waiting for Godot theatregoers would leave after the first act, describing it as a play where “nothing happens”, and taxi drivers would wait in front of the theatre to take them home. The Miami showing caused the cancellation of the showings in New York. By April 1956, new showings were planned. That month, Schneider and most of the cast were replaced. Herbert Berghof took over as director and E.G. Marshall replaced Tom Ewell as Vladimir. The New York showing of the play prompted discussions of the play being an allegory. One reviewer, Henry Hewes of the "Saturday Review", identified Godot as God, Pozzo