There's Lots of Time in Godot

GODOTOLOGY THERE'S LOTS OF TIME IN GODOr Two DUETS AND A FALSE SOLO, that's Waiting for Godot. Its structure is more musical than dramatic, more theatrical than literary. The mode is pure performance: song and dance, music-hall routine, games. And the form is a spinning away, a centrifugal wheel in which the center-Time-can barely hold the parts, Gogo and Didi, Pozzo and Lucky, the Boy(s). The characters arrive and depart in pairs, and when they are alone they are afraid: half of them is gone. The Boy isn't really by himself, though one actor plays the role( s). "It wasn't you came yesterday," states Vladimir in act two. "No Sir," the Boy says. "This is your first time." "Yes sir." Only Godot is alone, at the center of the play and all outside it at once. "What does he do, Mr. Godot? ... He does nothing, Sir." But even Godot is linked to Gogo/Didi. "To Godot? Tied to Godot! What an idea! No question of it. (Pause.) For the moment." Godot is also linked to the Boy(s), who tend his sheep and goats, who are his messengers. Nor can we forget that Godot cares enough for Gogo/Didi to send someone each night to tell them the appointment will not be kept. What exquisite politeness. Pozzo (and we must assume, Lucky) has never heard of Godot, although the promised meeting is to take place on his land. Pozzo is insulted that his name means nothing to Gogo/Didi. "We're not from these parts," Estragon says in apology, and Pozzo deigns, "You are human beings none the less." Pozzo/Lucky have no appointment to keep. Despite the cracking whip and Pozzo's air of big business on the make, their movements are random, to and fro across the land, burdens in hand, rope in place: there is always time to stop and proclaim . In Act One, after many adieus, Pozzo says, "I don't seem to be able ... (long hesitation) ... to depart." And when he does move, he confesses, "I need a running start." In Act Two, remembering nothing about "yesterday," Pozzo replies to Vladimir's question, "Where do you go from here" with a simple "On." It is Pozzo's last word. The Pozzo/Lucky duet is made of improvised movements and set speeches (Lucky's has run down). The Gogo/Didi duet is made of set movements (they must beat this place each night at dusk to wait 268 1966 THERE'S LOTS OF TIME IN Codot 269 for Godot to come or night to fall) and improvised routines spun out of long-ago learned habits. Pozzo who starts in no place is worried only about Time; he ends without time but with a desperate need to move. Gogo-Didi are "tied" to this place and want only for time to pass. Thus, part way through the first act the basic scenic rhythm of Codot is established by the strategic arrangement of characters: Gogo/Didi (and later the Boy) have definite appointments, a rendezvous they must keep. Pozzo/Lucky are free agents, aimless, not tied to anything but each other. For this reason, Pozzo's watch is very important to him. Having nowhere to go, his only relation to the world is in knowing "the time." The play is a confrontation between the rhythms of place and time. Ultimately they are coordinates of the same function. Of course, Pozzo's freedom is illusory. He is tied to Lucky-and vice-versa-as tightly as the others are tied to Godot and the land. In the scenic calculus of the play, rope = appointment. As one coordinate weakens, the other tightens. Thus, when Pozzo/Lucky lose their sense of time, there is a corresponding increase in their need to cover space. Lucky's speech is imperfect memory, an uncontrollable stream of un-consciousness, while Pozzo's talk is all ti1'ade, a series of set speeches, learned long ago, and slowly deserting the master actor, just as the things which define his identity-watch, pipe, atomizer-desert him. I am reminded of Yeats' Ci1'cUS Animals' Desertion where images fail the...