Waiting for Godot/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alternate Character Interpretation: Given how open the meanings of anything in the play are left, almost any interpretation of anything in the play can fall under this trope.
    • Pozzo is actually Lucky's slave,
    • the messenger boy is Godot,
    • Pozzo is Godot,
    • Lucky is Godot, and
    • there never was a Godot.
  • And the Fandom Rejoiced—One Broadway version starred Robin Williams and Steve Martin. The play still didn't make any sense, but it was incredibly funny.
    • That was one of the versions of the play that the Beckett estate hated due to how much they improvised, even breaking the fourth wall. Beckett is one of those playwrights whose work is considered "beyond" any kind of "fixing", and the estate are renowned for suing people who perform the play any way other than how it's written.
    • The 2009 West End version starred no less than Patrick Stewart as Vladamir and Ian McKellen as Estragon (not the first time those two had acted opposite each other, either). It should be absolutely no surprise that their performances were critically acclaimed. Stewart was replaced by Roger Rees for the international tour.
  • Non Sequitur Scene: Lucky's "Think".
  • Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: Despite many critics' interpretations, Godot is not shorthand for God. Others theorize that the play represents a kind of Hell or purgatory.
  • It Was His Sled: Godot never comes.
  • True Art Is Incomprehensible: Lucky's "think" being a major offender here.
    • The play itself counts as this. Beckett himself was known for doing several artistic plays, such as a play where the audience is locked out of the theater so they can only hear the play and a play in which one sentence was spoken and then the curtains closed.
  • The Woobie: Poor, poor Lucky...
    • Arguably, everybody (except perhaps for Pozzo) in the play.