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Waiting for Samuel A Non-Play in No Acts Introduction: Susan Rusinko Sammy has gone out for a drink. Back in his London apartment, a book opens out into its own world and four characters, Vladimir, Estragon, Pozzo and Lucky, converse in the absence of their creator. Vladimir: Can these critics know Sammy? Does he fit in their world? Estragon: Do they fit in his world? Vladimir: None of the critics was saved. Estragon: What? Vladimir: Suppose we repented? Estragon: Repented what? Being interpreted? Vladimir: One daren’t even enjoy any more. Merely interpret. It’s not the same thing. Nothing to be expressed. Estragon: What isn’t to be expressed? Vladimir: Everything. Estragon: Except the obligation. Vladimir: Do you ever read criticism? Estragon: I must have looked at it. Vladimir: (Wearily) I remember the prolonged metaphors... all the stuff about St. Augustine... the philosophical propositions about waiting—are we acting?—all the stuff about inactive modern man... Estragon: Great stuff! Vladimir: What? You should have been a critic. Estragon: I was. Isn’t that obvious? (Gesture toward his bottle of Valium) Vladimir: How’s your foot? Still symbolic? Estragon: It hurts. Vladimir: Ah, yes, the master-slave interpretation of Godot. You remember the Hegelian version? Estragon: No. Vladimir: Shall I tell it to you? Estragon: No. Vladimir: It’ll waste time. Two men. One fears death... he holds on... and the other... doesn’t. Estragon: Holds on to what? Vladimir: His consciousness. Estragon: Why believe him rather than the others? Vladimir: Who believes him? Estragon: No-one. Everybody has her own version. Vladimir: Let’s go. Estragon: We can’t. Vladimir: Why not? Estragon: We’re waiting for Sammy. Vladimir: What if he doesn’t come? Estragon: We’d be interpreted ad pecuniam... in my opinion we were here. Vladimir: You mean you recognize the place? Estragon: Hell, yes. It’s a place of no place, a world of abstraction... bloodless categories... (Falls asleep, gets woken up) Bloody categories! I had a dream... Vladimir: Don’t tell me. Estragon: It’ll waste time. I saw Sammy strutting, mumbling something about two magnets in a vacuum. We were at opposite poles. In this world of vacuum, he goes, the charge of the critic-brigade is somewhat static: “My Godot! These erudite hordes, poring over endless pages, stumbling in cracked allusions. Dayadhvam Damyata Dammit... do I dare to write a play?” Vladimir: What do we do now? Estragon: How about symbolising ourselves? Vladimir: Hmm... it’d give us significance. Estragon: (Excitedly) ...Significance! Vladimir: With all its lordly pretensions: no absurdity, contingency... Hail, Estragon, conqueror of Pointlessness! Estragon: Let’s symbolise ourselves immediately! I’ll be body and you be mind... we’ll play at Cartesian centaurs! Vladimir: Why give me the dirty work? Estragon: It’s logical. Gogo eat sleep fears being beaten. Didi ponder spiritual salvation. Gogo stink from feet Didi stink from mouth Gogo sit lean limp preoccupied with feet, closeness to earth Did play with hat, concern with head. Vladimir: But in Act II we both act mental, what says your highness? Shall we wait and see what he says? Estragon: What exactly did we ask him for? Vladimir: To interpret us. Estragon: And what did he reply? Vladimir: That he couldn’t give two boots. Something about existential inwardness of experience being incommunicable... Estragon: So it’s all up to us. How should we begin? Vladimir: Are we intelligent enough? Shall our worthlessness go abroad? Estragon: That’s the idea, let’s allude. Vladimir: What’s that smell? Estragon: ...a German concept! Vladimir: Who? Estragon: Look! Enter Pozzo and Lucky. Vladimir: (to Pozzo) You’re not Sammy, are you? Pozzo: You could say we are a part of him. We existed long before him, somewhere in an ideal world. It is his wish that we interact at the point of contingency. How about you? Estragon: We’re waiting for Sammy. Pozzo: Waiting? So you were waiting for him? Why? Vladimir: (Uneasily) Well you see, we were rather hoping... Estragon: That he would resolve... Vladimir: Critical dispute. Pozzo: Interpretation is free to all. Estragon: A free for all. Vladimir: That’s how we looked at it. Estragon: Once. Pozzo: It’s a disgrace. But there you are. Estragon: Where? Vladimir: Nothing we can do about it. We try to keep ourselves to everyone else. Here we are, doing nothing to embody (Wo)Man’s universal dilemma, when some metaphysician pounces upon us, and before you can croak krik krak krek, effects the death of a thousand platitudes: “Aha... a clear case of Jungean schizophrenia...” Estragon: Dementia Criticox. Vladimir: Unluckiones, quibus intemptata nites. Pozzo: Stop! You think you’re unlucky? You’re lucky not to be Lucky—or me. The accusations against me are preposterous! I too am tired of being paralleled with elements in Kierkegaard and Sartre... Someone even had the cheek to accuse me of holding thought in bondage, saying that I couldn’t think for myself and that my beautiful twilight speech was a set piece... after all the trouble I took making it spontaneous. It is depressing the number of cranks one meets in the void of being... only yesterday I met a man of repute and he kept puting: “I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on.” Estragon: But we’re supposed to envy you. Lucky! He damned well is lucky! Pozzo: Lucky is Lucky? Stoutly reasoned, my dear boy! You’re no Ramist (heaven be praised). You sound quite qualified... have you a degree? Vladimir: Yes. He graduated last year in Pure Tautology with a minor in Applied Sycophantic Rhetoric, from King’s, Cambridge. Pozzo: (Momentarily intimated) Mmm... better than being nothingness. But what’s all this about envy? Vladimir: Even your selfish self excites envy in us, for whom neither time nor necessity exists. Estragon: Ssh... (whispering) We’re not supposed to recognize that, you bubbling moron, it would burst our metaphysical comicality. Vladimir: Kicking against the pricks, eh? I’m telling this gentleman few complex facts. Listen, you’re both lucky cos you don’t even know what it would mean for time to stagnate: you because you’re pulled along by him, and he because he’s driven forward by you—with bones thrown in! Estragon: It’s a scandal! Vladimir: A disgrace! Pozzo: You are severe. What age are you? Vladimir: Older than the chains of Prometheus... as old as the dawn of consciousness, the first faint symbols floating over thought’s horizon, as old as the void within yourself... Pozzo: I see: you don’t know. I must be getting on. Unless I give an interpretation before I go. What do you say? Oh, I only interpret now and then, it’s a cosmological habit of mine. I’m not in the habit of making two connected statements: being a literary man, it makes my head tingle. But do you want an interpretation or not? Vladimir: Say what you must. Pozzo: The universe is I. Estragon: What do you mean? Pozzo: I mean whatever is meant. Do you think Sammy would like that? (Gesturing toward the sky) ...“The universe is I!” Sums me up, doesn’t it? What, with my time wasting, my vaporizer, my pipe, my refusal to listen... I interpret myself rather well, n’est-ce-pas? Vladimir: We agree that you’re a selfish louse, if that’s what you mean. Estragon: Yes, you’ve certainly added a new dimension to criticism. Pozzo: Really? And what, pray, shall this by-product of my interminable inventiveness be called? Vladimir: Vulgarity. Pozzo: (Sorrowfully) ...I have done it again. Once in every play I manage it... a sort of gibbering sophist (returning shrewdly to his non-senses) ...Gentlemen! Let me offend no more your fine sensibilities, and leave this play forthwith. Estragon: You can’t. Pozzo: Why not? Vladimir: Because Sammy put you here. Pozzo: Then where the devil is he? I have wish to remain. Estragon: He’s in the boozer. You’ll have to wait till he gets back. Pozzo: I would be too happy to meet him. From the meanest, most economical writer one departs more conscious of one’s role. Why, even you, who knows, will have shown me that I am incapable of my own interpretation. Vladimir: So we are all three waiting for Sammy now. (All three look at Lucky) Estragon: What about him (pointing to Lucky) ...Is he waiting for Sammy too? Vladimir: (Walking around him) He doesn’t look as if he’s waiting for anything. Pozzo: He, my dear boy, does not wait. He merely remains. Waiting is intentional, and he has no intention except mine. What d’you think this rope’s for? Estragon: With all due deference, sadomasochistic accounts of your relationship are abroad. Pozzo: Forget Sartre, will you? I tell you I’m fed up of being interpreted. Estragon: Then why are you waiting for Sammy? Pozzo: For the interpretation to end all interpretations. Why always the cold shoulder from you gentlemen? How do you know my relationship with Lucky isn’t, say, Platonic? And that his pain isn’t self-transcended in the absolute into a more general joy? How do you know he doesn’t want a noose around his neck? For all you know he could be having the time of his life... Vladimir: All right, Pozzo, forget the dramatic begging-for-sympathy bit, or we’ll interpret you further. Pozzo:You mean there’s more? Estragon: That slick mask of yours... Pozzo: What are you talking about? Vladimir: Lost values. Estragon: We know what a sloppy sentimental creep you once were. Pozzo: Is there no way out of this role? I’d rather be contingent. Vladimir: What do you think you are now? Meaningful? Pozzo: On second thoughts, what’ve you two got to boast about? The whole play’s about you, isn’t it? I’m merely a protagonist. You’re the most interpreted tramps this side of the Anti-International Fallacy. You won’t be autonomous at all, merely artifacts of criticism. By 2000 the world’ll be neck deep in accounts of Estragon and Vladimir. Beneath all the gilded criticism, an image of two tramps tres inactifs. (Buries his head in his hand chuckling) Estragon: God forbid! You mean the whole of mankind will be symbolized by us—tramps? Pozzo: Precisely, gentlemen. So the last laugh’s on you. (Chuckles again) Estragon: Or on mankind. Pozzo: (Resuming a straight face) Have you nothing better to do than invert parables? Did no-one tell you that irony is out? Estragon: Well, what’s in? Pozzo: Obscurity gentlemen, obscurity. How can you sound intelligent if people can understand what you’re saying? Vladimir: Er, this Lucky... his critical faculties... what are they like? Pozzo: Abominably good—once. My Lucky! Why, once upon a consciousness he was as unfair, irrational and insincere as the best. He’d interpret everything for me... the tides the wave the wind... in all these things he’d see a meaning that wasn’t there. But (he begins to weep) he’s become as straight as an absurdist. It’s unbearable... his honesty... he calls a slave a slave... what use is that? Estragon: One knows what to expect. Vladimir: We’re used to it. Estragon: (Nervously) He doesn’t still interpret, does he? Dear me (turning to Vladimir) ...he might interpret us! Pozzo: Is there anything I can do, that’s what I ask myself, to cheer them up? To shorten the distance between them and their final interpretation? I have admitted that my memory is defective, I have helped to push time forward for them by providing a focus for their incessant chatter, I have given then something to envy, admittedly. But is this all I amount to, that’s what tortures me, is this all? Estragon: Even ten lines would be too much. Vladimir: We are not editors! Pozzo: Is this all? No doubt. But critics are liberal. They’ll significize me to the marrow. It’s their nature. So much the worse for me. Estragon: Even five lines. Vladimir: That’s enough! Estragon: I couldn’t make sense of less. Pozzo: Well, what do you prefer? You’ve already seen him do the cosmic shuffle, and make a mockery of thought. Shall we have him read Waiting for Godot or interpret something in it? Estragon: He can still interpret? Pozzo: Certainly. Very prettily once, but now... (He shudders) Vladimir: I’d rather he read it first, it’d be more useful? Pozzo: Not necessarily. Haven’t read it myself yet. Estragon: Perhaps he could interpret first and read it afterwards, if it isn’t too much to ask him. Vladimir: Would that be possible? Pozzo: By all means, nothing simpler. It’s the usual order. Vladimir: Then tell him to interpret. Pozzo: Do you hear, pig? Interpret! Lucky: Unconscious, the hour of talk: Vladimir: Is that all? Estragon: Pooh! I’d do as well myself. Pozzo: He lapses into these spasms of doggerel when he’s hungry. He thinks there’s a tension between the immaterial consciousness and the decaying material universe of his stomach. Some humbug about recurring awareness of self and impossibility of escape from it. Still, you might like to hear his definition poetry. Pig! Define poetry! Lucky: (Timidly) Poetry is the invention of a new language by some, the attempted decipherment of which by others, generates the illusion of meaning for both. Estragon: Then why do you write it? Vladimir: Tell him to interpret better. Pozzo: Give him his book. Vladimir: His book? Pozzo: He can’t interpret without his book. Estragon: What is the book called? Pozzo: Interpretation: A Pleonastic Approach. Vladimir: (Handing him the book to Lucky) There, pig! Interpret! Lucky: Drama is a realization of a specific within a general temporality wherefore within the present play we may be a collective symbol of universal historical human consciousness whose manifestation as feeling in this place of no place is most generally discernible as hope, which gives you two your incurable optimism, increasing with each day that Godot does not come, it being natural for hope to intensify as one’s affairs deteriorate, an inverse proportionality built into some ancient cultures in the form of a cyclical conception of historical time, a conception accommodating optimism insofar as the worsening situation is felt to carry within itself a seed of regeneration, a stage foreshadowed where the world comes to an end and recommences afresh, the microcosmic mimesis of which type of revolution is given in your existence on a stage almost devoid of material objects, the remainder being an omnipresent embracing neither before nor after, corresponding to an internal detemporalisation which is the hallmark of your experience of consciousness hence you began your waiting before the beginning of Act I and after the end of Act II and so did your audience and everyone else who ever did, does, or will, exist... Estragon: (Yawns) I’m sleepier now than I ever was in Godot. Vladimir: (To Pozzo) I thought you said he’d become honest. What is he talking about? Pozzo: I don’t know. I don’t know. I suppose it’s nostalgia for a lost identity search. If he wants to have headaches among the overtones, let him. Let him finish his little game... (sigh)... Continue, you heap of dust! Lucky: ...and waiting, being intentional, is directed towards some object whose indeterminateness here yields a predicament in uncompromisingly labelling Beckett an Existentialist thinker since, although his preoccupation with “non-logical statement of phenomena in the order and exactitude of their perception, before they have been distorted into intelligibility in order to be forced into a chain of cause and effect” points to a phenomenological approach to the expression of self-awareness which derides the intelligibilising compromise of relational thought together with any notion of constituting consensus implied therein, it is beyond possibility that a play with five characters could represent the collective experience of one mind without appealing to a continuity of such consensus between the characters and the audience, this dilemma corresponding qua externality to the impossibility of internal separation of Vladimir and Estragon in terms of strict demarcation of body–mind or emotion–intellect or of Pozzo and myself as elements of a state of consciousness that the other pair aspire to inasmuch as our more fixed roles facilitate a greater renunciation of immediacy and flight from self-perception and since the pluralisation of self into perceiver and perceived doesn’t preclude the possibility of self-consciousness being also mediated by others, Beckett himself having claimed that suppressed extraneous perception is maintained in self-perception, precipitating two types of relationships, mind–matter and mind–mind, in Waiting for Godot awareness of self expressed as the ways in which time is experienced by these relationships, namely the drivel we all utter which keeps us all going... Vladimir seizes Lucky’s Book. Estragon: There’s an end to his interpreting. Vladimir: Blind understanding of soothsayers! Estragon: What does he take us for? An entire literary generation? Pozzo: Silence! Estragon: I hear something. Vladimir: It’s Sammy. Enter boy, timidly. Boy: Mister character...? Vladimir: Yes? Estragon: What do you want? Boy: Mr. Sammy... Vladimir: You have a message from Sammy? Boy: Yes, sir. Vladimir: Well, what is it? Boy: I’m afraid, sir. Vladimir: You were afraid of symbolism? Boy: Yes, sir. Estragon: The two big critics? Boy: Yes, sir. Vladimir: Words, words, speak. Boy: Sammy told me to tell you that he won’t interpret you this evening but surely tomorrow. Vladimir: Sammy created you? Boy: Yes, sir. Estragon: He doesn’t interpret you? Boy: No, sir. Vladimir: Whom does he interpret? Boy: The vanishing into each other of being and becoming, sir. Vladimir: Well then, you may go. Estragon: Get lost! Exit boy. Vladimir: How long have we been interpreted now? Estragon: Twenty-four years, perhaps. Vladimir: Wait! I wonder if we’d be better interpreting each other. We weren’t made to interpret ourselves. Estragon: It’s not certain. Vladimir: It’s not worth while now. Estragon: Well, shall we try not to interpret? Vladimir: Yes, that’s the idea, let’s try not to interpret. They interpret. Curtain
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