Lucky's Dance in Waiting for Godot

Lucky's Dance in Waiting for Godot TOBY SILVERMAN ZINMAN In Act One of Waiting for Godot, just before Lucky delivers himself of his famous sentence, Estragon asks if he would dance for them, and Pozzo commands . "Dance, misery!,,1 There are no stage directions to indicate the nature of the movements which are to follow; we are told, "Lucky puts doWI! bag and basket, advances towards front, turns to Pozzo. Lucky dances. He stops" (26b). After the cry of "Encore!" we are told that he "executes the same movements , stops" (26b). How each actor playing Lucky chooses to dance his dance must be invented for each production, the only hints coming from the dialogue which follows Pozzo's question, "Do you know what he calls it?" ESTRAGON The Scapegoat's Agony. VLADIMIR The Hard Stool. POZZO The Net. He thinks he's entangled in a net. '(27) In the French, the dialogue which precedes the naming of the dance is different ; after Pozzo asks, "Savez-vous comment il I'appelle?" Estragon replies: "La mort du lampiste," and Vladimir adds: "Le cancer des vieillards." But the name of the dance remains quite the same: "La danse du filet. II se croit empetr6 dans un filet."z The only other clue3 comes from Estragon's surprise at the end of Lucky's first performance, "Is that all?" which prompts Pozzo's command, "Encore!" All we can surmise from this is that the dance - however it looks - is brief and somehow disappointing (unless, of course, "Is that all?" is delivered ironically, after a very long and complicated dance). The analyses of Lucky's monologue are many and various, but Lucky's dance is barely mentioned by Beckett scholars and critics. And the actors who played Lucky have not talked about how they performed the dance or how they arrived at the movements. Nor have the famous directors directing Godot - Roger Blin, Walter Asmus, Alan Schneider - spoken to the point. Modem Drama, 38 (1995) 308 Waiting/or Godot 309 Jack MacGowran, whose Beckett performances - including playing Lucky - were legendary, had frustratingly nothing to say about the dance, despite the fact that his biographer writes: The role [of Lucky] was one of great difficulty, and MacGowran sought Beckett's assistance early in rehearsal. The physical requirements of the part, to be played largely in mime, were comparatively easy for MacGowran - although the former athlete told a reporter it was "like running a four-minute mile twice in an evening."4 Although Beckett taped the speech for MacGowran to teach him'the rhythms, there is no word about the dance. There is similar silence from other famous actors who have played Lucky; Jean Martin in the 1953 production at the Thea.1re de Babylone.elaborately describes the physical effects he aimed at without once mentioning the dance (McMillan and Fehsenfeld, 76); Roger Blin, who directed that original production, and who played Pozzo although he first considered playing Lucky, recollects many aspects of the staging, the costumes, the meanings and effects of the Pozzo-Lucky couple, but he does not mention the dance (McMillan and Fehsenfeld, 68-73). Klaus Herm, who performed Lucky in the 1975 Schiller-Theater production of Warten au/ Godot under Beckett's direction, and had previously taken the role a decade earlier in a German production directed by Deryk Mendel, has much to say about his understanding of Lucky's character, but not a word about the dance5 J. Pat Miller, whom Beckett declared "the best Lucky I've ever seen" (quoted by McMillan and Fehsenfeld, 74), performed in the 1984 Australian tour of the San Quentin Drama Workshop production which Beckett directed. Much information about this San Quentin Drama Workshop production is provided by McMillan and Fehsenfeld - both from 'their own recollections and their interviews with the cast (74-75) - but not a word about the dance. This anomalous lack of commentary on the dance matches Beckett's anomalous lack of stage directions for the dance, especially in the face of Beckett's now fabled insistence on stringent fidelity to the script's specifications. This same silence exists in Beckett's notebooks for the Schiller-Theater production6 Perhaps we should think...