Ahead of the 2020 performance of Waiting for Godot at The Centre for the Less Good Idea, two ‘In Conversation’ events were initiated as part of The Centre’s SO Academy in order to further explore the complexities of thinking and feeling that constitute the world of Samuel Beckett’s significant play in a contemporary South African context.

This first In Conversation, titled “In Rehearsal with Godot” takes place at The Centre on the evening of 23 October 2020 and sees writer, artist and academic Jane Taylor, who serves as dramaturg for the work, in conversation with The Centre’s animateur and director of the play, Phala Ookeditse Phala as well as the cast which features the renowned talents of Tony Bonani Miyambo as Estragon (Gogo), Billy Edward Langa as Vladimir (Didi), Jemma Kahn as Lucky and Boy, and Stefania Du Toit as Pozzo.

Using the world between the words as a starting point, Taylor and Phala unpack the initial need to make sense of the space in which the play would be produced, and how set became a vital starting point. How the incidental nature of an immovable wooden beam serving as structural support in The Centre space provided the answer, ultimately becoming one of the first characters in this iteration of the play – the tree.

A showing by the cast provides an opportunity for audiences to observe the embodiment of the characters, if only briefly, and acts as a springboard for rich discussion around the pre-history of the play, the physical and psychological act of waiting in contemporary times, and the ingraining of habit, text, and character in the body. The cast reflects on the circumstantial luxury of being able to sit with a text for an extended period, picking the script apart through countless zoom rehearsals and having time to imagine how their characters would exist in the world, before being able to physically meet and begin work on the play.

Ending the conversation is an extended discussion on the challenges and joys of exploring the central question, circumstance or phrase of “nothing to be done” as well as how notions of language, play, identity, and intimacy became vital tools in a journey of embodiment that begins with freedom.

– David Mann