The key lies not so much in the what as in the how. So, what made Beckett’s play so innovative to 1950s audiences? As Michael Patterson observes in The Oxford Guide to Plays (Oxford Quick Reference), the theme of promised salvation which never arrives had already been explored by a number of major twentieth-century playwrights, including Eugene O’Neill ( The Iceman Cometh) and Eugène Ionesco ( The Chairs).Īnd plays in which ‘nothing happens’ were already established by this point, with conversation and meandering and seemingly aimless ‘action’ dominating other twentieth-century plays. However, contrary to popular belief, this is not what made Waiting for Godot such a revolutionary piece of theatre. It is always just beyond the horizon, in the future, arriving ‘tomorrow’.
With this structure in mind, it is hardly surprising that the play is often interpreted as a depiction of the pointless, uneventful, and repetitive nature of modern life, which is often lived in anticipation of something which never materialises.
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