Waiting for Godot

The general take

Barack Obama remembers his mom taking him to Waiting for Godot at age 12 and finding it initially confusing, but he came around to appreciating it enough that the experience stuck with him and made him more open to theater later on. He doesn't call it his preferred entertainment, but he credits going to see it with expanding his perspective on what art could be.

About

Now coming to Broadway, starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter and directed by Tony and Olivier Award-winner Jamie Lloyd, Samuel Beckett's indelible masterpiece, an unwavering testament to what it means to be human From an inauspicious beginning at the tiny Left Bank Theatre de Babylone in 1953, followed by bewilderment among American and British audiences, Waiting for Godot has become of the most important and enigmatic plays of the past fifty years and a cornerstone of twentieth-century drama. As Clive Barnes wrote, “Time catches up with genius . . . Waiting for Godot is one of the masterpieces of the century.” The story revolves around two seemingly homeless men waiting for someone—or something—named Godot. Vladimir and Estragon wait near a tree, inhabiting a drama spun of their own consciousness.

Who said what

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  Barack Obama👍 Recommends

  …discussing exposing young people to art and theater beyond traditional masculine activities

  “And I was still being taken to, you know, waiting for Godot. Like, I remember my mom took me to a Samuel Beckett play when I was like 12. And I'm kind of sitting there. Like, what is this about? But you know what? I kind of got it after a while. I mean, it wasn't necessarily the thing I would choose to do. But the fact that I did it meant later when I was 17, 18. All right. There's something there that, you know, may be interesting.”

  IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson — Focus On What’s Right About Young Men with Barack Obamaat 53:08

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