Samuel Beckett
Digital Manuscript Project
En attendant Godot / Waiting for Godot

MS-BL-LCP-1954-23

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[p. cover]
WAITING FOR GODOT

Tragicomedy in Two Acts

By

SAMUEL BECKETT

12.

No. 6597
LORD CHAMBERLAIN'S OFFICE.
Name of Play Waiting for Godot
Theatre Criterion Theatre
Date of Licence 1. 7. 54

[p. tp]
WAITING FOR GODOT

Tragicomedy in Two Acts

By

SAMUEL BECKETT

[p. dp]

ESTRAGON
VLADIMIR
LUCKY
POZZO
A BOY

*****

[p. 01r]

[0001] ACT ONE

[0002] A country road. A tree.

[0003] Evening.

[0004] ESTRAGON, sitting on a low mound, is trying to take off his boot. [0005] He pulls at it with both hands, panting. [0006] He stops, exhausted, rests, begins again. [0007] As before.

[0008] Enter VLADIMIR.

ESTRAGON

[0009] (Giving up again) [0010] Nothing to be done.

VLADIMIR

[0011] (Advancing with short, stiff strides, legs wide apart) [0012] I'm beginning to come round to that opinion. [0014] All my life I've tried to put it from me, saying, Vladimir, be reasonable, you haven't yet tried everything. [0015] And I resumed the struggle. [0016] (he broods, musing on the struggle. [0017] To ESTRAGON) [0018] So there you are.

ESTRAGON

[0019] Am I?

VLADIMIR

[0020] I'm glad to see you back. [0021] I thought you were gone for ever.

ESTRAGON

[0022] Me too.

VLADIMIR

[0022|001] Together again at last! [0023] We'll have to celebrate this. But how? [0024] (he reflects) [0025] Get up till I embrace you.

ESTRAGON

[0027] (Irritably) [0028] Not now, not now.

VLADIMIR

[0030] (Hurt, coldly) [0031] May one enquire where his Highness spent the night?

ESTRAGON

[0032] In a ditch.

VLADIMIR

[0033] (Admiringly) [0034] A ditch! [0035] Where?

ESTRAGON

[0036] (Without gesture) [0037] Over there.

VLADIMIR

[0038] And they didn't beat you?

ESTRAGON

[0039] Certainly they beat me.

VLADIMIR

[0041] The same lot as usual?

ESTRAGON

[0042] The same? [0043] I don't know.

VLADIMIR

[0045] When I think of it...all these years...but for me... where would you be... [0046] (decisively) [0047] You'd be nothing more than a little heap of bones at the present minute, no doubt about it.

[p. 02r]

ESTRAGON

[0049] And what of it?

VLADIMIR

[0051] It's too much for one man. [0052] (pause. [0053] Cheerfully) [0054] On the other hand what's the good of losing heart now, that's how I look at it. [0055] We should have thought of it when the world was young, in the nineties.

ESTRAGON

[0056] Ah stop talking [0057] and help me off with this bloody thing.

VLADIMIR

[0058] Hand in hand from the top of the Eiffel Tower, among the first. [0059] We were respectable in those days. [0060] Now it's too late. [0061] They wouldn't even let us up. [0062] (ESTRAGON tears at his boot) [0063] What are you doing?

ESTRAGON

[0064] Taking off my boot. [0065] Did that never happen to you?

VLADIMIR

[0066] Boots must be taken off every day, I'm tired telling you that. [0067] Why don't you listen to me?

ESTRAGON

[0068] (Feebly) [0069] Help me!

VLADIMIR

[0070] It's hurting you?

ESTRAGON

[0071] Hurting me! [0072] He wants to know if it's hurting me!

VLADIMIR

[0073] (Angrily) [0074] No one ever suffers but you. [0075] I don't count. [0077] I'd like to hear what you'd say [0076] if you had what I have.

ESTRAGON

[0078] It hurts you?

VLADIMIR

[0079] Hurts me! [0080] He wants to know if it hurts me!

ESTRAGON

[0081] (Pointing) [0082] You might button it all the same.

VLADIMIR

[0083] (Stooping) [0084] True. [0085] (he buttons his fly) [0086] Never neglect the little things of life.

ESTRAGON

[0087] What do you expect, you always wait till the last moment.

VLADIMIR

[0088] (Musingly) [0089] The last moment... [0090] (he meditates) [0091] Hope deferred maketh the something sick, [0092] who said that?

ESTRAGON

[0093] Will you not help me?

VLADIMIR

[0094] Sometimes I feel it coming all the same. [0095] Then I go all queer. [0096] (he takes off his hat, peers inside it, feels about inside it, shakes it, puts it on again) [0097] How shall I say? [0098] Relieved and at the same time... (he searches for the word)... appalled. [0099] (with emphasis) [0100] AP-PALLED. [0101] (he takes off his hat again, peers inside it) [0102] Funny. [0103] (he knocks on the

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