Janusz Pyda OP: Let's start with the fundamental question: Who is Godot? The play's protagonists seem unsure. In fact, they have no idea. Estragon is clueless, while Vladimir, the only character in favour of waiting for Godot, is incapable of describing what he looks like, let alone explaining the circumstances of their meeting or the reason for his conviction that Godot can change their destiny. He nevertheless claims that they have both met Godot once before and that Godot promised to meet them again. In short, Vladimir is not credible and gives one nothing to go on.

When Beckett was asked the same question, he would reply indirectly or by negation: ‘If I knew, I wouldn't have written the play’ was his standard answer. He is also on record as saying, ‘If I knew, I would have said so in the play,’ or again, ‘If by Godot I had meant God, I would have said God and not Godot.’ For me the most interesting of his very few comments on the subject is the following: ‘I do not know who Godot is. I do not even know if he exists. And I do not know if they believe he does, these two who are waiting for him.’ One thing emerges clearly from all this: the author does not place himself above the reader/audience; there is nothing that only he knows and wants to conceal from them. He does not even place himself in a privileged position in relation to his own text. Like the audience/reader, he knows only what can be deduced from the text, nothing more.

So the text is all we have. And the text, full as it is of uncertainties and unknowns, things murky and obliquely hinted at, does seem to tell us one thing with certainty, namely, that whether or not Godot exists, whether or not he really did meet the protagonists somewhere or is merely a figment of their imagination, he is a person. The protagonists are not waiting for an event or a thing, like manna from heaven; they are waiting for a person. Is this really something we can be certain of? And if so, what does it entail?

Antoni Libera: Yes, that is definitely something we can be certain of, and it entails a number of important things.