The University of SC Dept. of Theatre and Dance will present Samuel Beckett’s influential masterpiece Waiting for Godot February 7-17, 2019 at the Center for Performance Experiment. 

Waiting for Godot will be presented in alternating repertory with Lauren Gunderson’s The Revolutionists on the following dates and times: February 7, 11, 13, 15, 16 & 17 at 8pm, and February 9 & 10 at 3pm. 

Beckett’s revolutionary existential drama has intrigued, confounded, and entertained audiences and artists alike since its premiere in 1953.  Waiting for Godot is at once hilarious and profoundly moving in its portrayal of two vagabonds, Vladimir and Estragon, who spend their days together questioning, theorizing, arguing, laughing, and consoling…all while eternally awaiting the arrival of an enigmatic figure named Godot. 

"It is a mystery wrapped in an enigma… Waiting for Godot is all feeling. Perhaps that is why it is puzzling and convincing at the same time.”  _{Brooks Atkinson, NY Times}

 
“The play is very funny in a ‘sad clown’ kind of way,” says director Steven Pearson.  “I’m reminded of the wonderful films of Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton.  Those characters were trying to negotiate the process of living in a world that was strange and full of difficulty, and their struggle was full of great humor amidst the pathos of their situation.” 

Voted "the most significant English language play of the 20th century” in a 1998 British Royal National Theatre poll, Waiting for Godot has proven to be a truly timeless classic, its characters and story still as engaging and relevant as ever.

“[It] touches on a prevailing sense of estrangement, or unease, or uncertainty that we have at this time,” says Pearson.  “A sense of isolation and lack of influence in a somewhat chaotic world of social, political, economic, informational, climatic, and virtual forces that we don’t understand, and which seem to move around us and shape our living.”

“We’re left with the continuing question of how to go on living, with hope or despair, but essentially how to go on as we help and support each other. I think these questions have been vital since the play was written and are especially prevalent now.”

Cast in Waiting for Godot are first-year MFA Acting students Tim Giles (Vladimir), Gabe Reitemeier (Estragon), Sean Ardor (Pozzo), and Can Yasar (Lucky), with undergraduate theatre major Cory Peeler as Boy.

“It’s funny.  It’s touching.  It’s madly quirky and consistently surprising,“ says Pearson.  “It’s one of the great plays of the twentieth century.”

For more information on Waiting for Godot or the theatre program at the University of South Carolina, contact Kevin Bush by phone at 803.777.9353 or via email at bushk@mailbox.sc.edu.