- Let's go?
- We can not.
- Why?
- We are waiting for Godot.
For Ítalo Calvino, a classic is “a book that never finished saying what it had to say”. The awareness that there is always something to learn is one of the lessons learned by students of Unicamp's Higher Interdisciplinary Training Program (ProFIS) when studying fundamental texts of Western literature. When meeting ancient and contemporary authors, they leave aside part of their certainties and realize that life is full of conflicts that do not always have a solution.
ProFIS is a Higher Education course at Unicamp aimed at students who graduated from high school in public schools in Campinas and who excelled in the Enem. Upon completing the program, they can directly enroll in undergraduate courses at Unicamp without taking the entrance exam.
Among the works they studied, Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett, is one of the ones that raises the most questions. In it, two ragamuffins, Vladimir and Estragon, talk about their pain and contentment while awaiting the arrival of Godot, an undefined entity, but in whom they place all their hopes. In Beckett's work, Godot never arrives. A metaphor for messianism, or perhaps a critique of people's apathy. For ProFIS students, it was the opportunity to get to know one of the most important plays in contemporary theater in a reinterpretation carried out by Teatro Oficina. On June 12th, they were in São Paulo to watch a production directed by José Celso Martinez Corrêa.
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Certainties in check
Preparing for the show made the students mature from a cultural and human point of view. At the same time as they expanded their artistic repertoire by discussing aspects of the work and comparing it with other texts, they sought within themselves the meanings contained in Beckett's dialogues. "I read the text and, at first, it was a shock. I thought: 'I didn't understand anything'. I felt as if I were one of the characters in the play, waiting for the meaning of the work", reveals Giulia Jacobucci (17). For the young woman, watching the production is a way of coming into contact with new interpretations. "Through dramatic art, I can establish new connections with my own repertoire. I believe it will be possible to extract new meanings.”
"The play presents a problematic view of human existence and a cognitive challenge, because it is not a conventional text", assesses Marcos Lopes, professor at the Institute of Language Studies (IEL) and professor of the subject at ProFIS. According to him, the suspension of the conflict, which does not achieve anything concrete, reveals facets of the human experience. "Beckett's text is, perhaps, one of those that question the human condition in the most forceful way. There are two characters waiting for a third, whose meaning is not known. It is a frustrated wait, marked by repetition. Nothing happens in the first act, nor in the second, except waiting for the characters", he comments.
In the search for closure, young readers put themselves in the position of Vladimir and Estragon. But the happy ending does not come, which can be disconcerting, especially for those who are at the beginning of adulthood. "They are at a stage in which their perception as individuals, as subjects of the world, is latent. Texts that call into question the values they have about themselves may cause discomfort, but they provoke maturity", says Ana Maria Côrtes, doctoral student in Theory and History of Literature and subject monitor.
"The wait never ends, there is an unresolved conflict. For me it is distressing, there is no outcome like we are used to”, reflects Angélica Guimarães (18). “It is something that dialogues with the current world, we think things will be resolved , but they only get worse. For me, the feeling that remains is that conflicts have no end. I think that's very human."
'Godot is dead!' and new possibilities for action
Founded in 1958, Teatro Oficina is today the longest-running theater company in the country. Under the direction of José Celso Martinez Corrêa, the group combines the tradition of over 60 years with constant innovation, reflected in the structure of the house, which rejects the Italian stage, and in elements such as the irreverence and irony of its tropicalist influences. .
Such cultural heritage could not leave Beckett's text without some transformation or dialogue with Brazilian culture. In case of Waiting for Godot, few elements deviated from the original. Vladimir and Estragon continue their indefinite wait, Pozzo and Felizardo (adaptation of the production for Lucky) are still an allegory of an oppressive and seductive power that subjugates the weakest, and a messenger still appears at the end of each act, warning that Godot is not coming today, but tomorrow will come. Oficina's subversions were simple, but significant: instead of a boy as messenger, Exu appears, a deity of African-based religions who bridges the gap between the human and the divine. At the end of the play, its message takes on a different tone: Godot will not come again, he is dead.
"Exu is a messenger, nothing begins without him”, explains Tony Reis, the character's interpreter. “His presence in the production is important, because there is still a lot of prejudice against him, who is associated with the devil. We talk about all the orixás, less than Exu. Bringing this to Beckett's text is transformative", he reflects.
Godot's death in the Teatro Oficina production opens a new perspective for the work. In place of an inert human being facing the world in crisis after the Second World War, there is a provocation to take control of our own existence and act, even in a still critical reality. José Celso's text goes straight to the point: there is no more to wait, we must move forward. "Only Zé Celso would have the authority to kill Godot. It is a transgression to end the process of immobility that we have as humanity. This is what we want to combat in our lives and in the community", points out Ricardo Bittencourt, who plays Pozzo.
"Sometimes we wait for others to make us happy, for work and family to make us happy. This happens in the love, economic and political fields. Deep down, life is a lonely path. We need to have courage and rely on our inner strength There is no savior of the country. We have to make our own way", comments Alexandre Borges, Vladimir's interpreter.
The timeliness of Beckett's text is revealed in other subtle interferences brought into play, such as the suitcase brought by Felizardo to serve Pozzo. When assembling Oficina, it is a thermal backpack used by app delivery people, a reference to the precariousness of work. This current situation also appears in mentions of parallel existence on social networks. These are reinterpretations that bring the show closer to Brazilian reality and facilitate connections with the audience's repertoire.
"The way in which the play was interpreted shows how timeless it is”, reflects Gabriel Silva (19), a ProFIS student, who understands why the text is a classic. “The criticisms of capitalism, of the changes that are taking place in politics, show how much the text was inserted in Beckett's life and how much it is also in ours".
Despite Godot's death, the decision of the two characters is the same at the end of the show:
- Let's go?
- Let's go!
It is not possible to know whether Vladimir and Estragon really left. What was very clear to the ProFIS students, as well as to the Oficina audience, was the invitation to learn to live with their own Godots, not allowing waiting to control their existence. Leave inertia aside and build your stories, based not on expectations, but on actions.
Read an article by PhD students in Literary Theory and History Ana Maria Ferreira Côrtes and Gabriela Vescovi: The Beckettian void in Waiting for Godot
