
Waiting for Godot | Act I – Here are two of the Nihileafs waiting, likely unbeknownst to them, for the perpetually late and rescheduling Godot. In Samuel Beckett’s original play, the dual characters of Estragon and Vladimir, unfaithfully imitated by Brump and Stoke respectively, are waiting for Godot but know they are doing so. It is not clear that is the case for the two Nihileafs, after all who would have told them about Godot or how would they have met Godot? Yet the Nihileafs are to be found on a stretch of land near a road, similar to the one that Estragon and Vladimir were expecting Godot. Of course it is not the same road, it is hardly even the same world they inhabit, yet I suspect that Godot is just as likely to arrive to greet Brump and Stoke as Estragon and Vladimir. Such are they mysterious travel habits of Godot, if any at all. So what is one to do to pass the time, well the characters in the play have taken an entirely different approach to boredism than the Nihileafs, who remain silent for the entirety of Act I. And though Act I is only a day, the Nihileafs have been here for much longer than that. It is implied the same goes for Estragon and Vladimir. For what it is worth Brump and Stoke do not encounter Estragon and Vladimir either, one pair sits by an oak tree and the other by a weeping willow. One inevitably does wonder who Godot is and what it would be like to meet Godot. This writer is just as curious and hopes that if anyone ever meets Godot, including the Nihileafs, that they would share details. Perhaps we are all waiting, in many cases unknowingly, for Godot. If that is so, then the question that must be answered, like in life, is the same for us all and it is what to do to pass the time? – Zachary