Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

WAITING FOR GODOT IN  ANTARCTICA

An audience gathers to preview a screening of a new version of this Samuel Beckett play. The directed striped his rendition down to bare existential black and white by filming in Antarctica and using penguins as actors. The problem of dialogue is solved by the technique of voice-over.

In the first act, two penguins stand on bleak, snow-covered ice. There’s a close up of one penguin. The voice-over says, “Nothing to be done.”

The camera slowly scans to the other penguin who waddles next to the first. His voice-over begins, “I’m beginning to come round to that opinion.”

The play continues in this manner. Occasionally, the two penguins rock back and forth in their stark, empty white world. When in the middle of the second act, a third penguin approaches, the two penguins waddle awkwardly to an icy hill and then toboggan on their stomachs down the hill and into the water.

After a soul-searching monologue, the third penguin also toboggans down the hill into the water. At the end of the play the two original penguins rock back and forth. One penguin says, “Well, shall we go swimming again?

The other penguin replies, “Yes, let’s go.”

But the penguins do not move.