Warten auf Godot
In the translation from French by Elmar Tophoven, 1953 (Revised version by Erika Tophoven, 1993)
ESTRAGON What shall we do now that we are happy? WLADIMIR We are waiting for Godot.
ESTRAGON Oh yes …
Warten auf Godot – written in the shadow of the great war, in times of despair and hopelessness. Past? More than ever, people today are waiting, in this black, troubled time, for salvation, for deliverance from the great fear of wars, plagues, destruction, the ongoing apocalypse. And we? Are we not all like "Wladimir" and "Estragon," sad clowns, waiters, players, on the edge of the highway, stranded in nowhere? Contemporaries and magicians at the same time. The journey is the goal, the imagination shows the way. And love. Then it goes on and on. A carousel, falling, getting up, starting anew –
And "Godot" – is he really the long-awaited savior? Or is it the mysterious "Pozzo," on his way – to where? – with his unfortunate servant, who is also called "Lucky"? Salvation or cruel mockery?
We wait, laugh and cry with them, hoping for our "Godot" – or has he already arrived?
After Bernhard's The German Lunch Table and Ionesco's The King is Dying, Claus Peymann directs for the third time in his new "home," the Theater in der Josefstadt.
Hallo, ich bin Maya.
