A Momentary Taste of Being

Concluding my recent excursion into absurdism, I took up Rhinoceros .  "La Cantatrice Chauve" (for some reason I love the French title) has long been one of my favorite plays with such lines as, "We've had a lovely cartesian quarter of an hour,"  and "What about the Bald Soprano"  [The Title of the play in English].  "I love the way she wears her hair."  And so on.  Ionesco, absurdist though he was, was instrumental in helping me form the surreal vision of life that has long been my bulwark and shield. However some of the mechanical absurdity of Rhinoceros doed not wear well. There are moments that work and that are lasting, but the central thesis the central alogicity of the momentum of the play, are relics of a time and a place--largely 1950s and 1960s France and colonial holdings.  From these we have Beckett, Ionesco, Sartre, and Camus, to name four who leap to mind instantly.  Combine atheistic existentialism with the long hard road af...

There is nothing I can write that will add to the understanding of Waiting for Godot . Everything I have to offer is subjective, and worth less than nothing. I can offer this You-tube video that presents a portion of a filmed version of the play. And note that now it plays on Broadway. Starring Nathan Lane.  And Bill Irwin. Oh, and John Goodman.  And John Glover. And, oh, it isn't playing.  It stopped. In the summer. And to me it did not seem as it did when I first read it in high school when it was fresh and new and alive. And it probably still is.  And perhaps I merely need to invite myself into its world. And yet, there seems no cause to do so. But surely there must be as it is the premier play of the 20th Century. Of all time. Of the twentieth century. Of all time.  Except Shakespeare. And Racine. And Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus. And Menander. And Tennesee Williams. And Clifford Odets. But it's a fine play. It is ...