June 21, 2017 by Ayun Halliday · Arts & Culture

Waiting For What? A Search for Midlife Meaning In 21 Scenes

Playwright Ayun Halliday wrote Zamboni Godot as a female-only take off on Samuel Beckett’s classic that explores inertia at midlife. Here’s the backstory on the play and the novice middle-age actresses who stepped out of their comfort zones to take part.

I have a decades-old soft spot for Vladimir and Estragon, the hapless heroes of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. They fritter away one act, and then the other in a self-imposed holding pattern, getting on each other’s nerves as only long time companions can, unwilling to admit that the pretext holding them together has no grounding in reality.

It’s a hell of a metaphor for life—and the role of a lifetime for the actor lucky enough to snag either of those parts.

Sadly, females need not apply. Beckett insisted that male actors were the only ones who could bring “Didi” and “Gogo” to life, a rule his estate enforces aggressively. He laid out other stipulations, too, mainly having to do with the desolate country lane on which the action is set.

Beckett's play is a hell of a metaphor for life. That's why it's a classic.

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