Still waiting after all these years
THE Théâtre de Babylone in Paris was a small theatre south of the Seine, with a capacity of 230 and minuscule stage. Its lifetime was short, lasting only two years. Its place in theatrical history may well have been forgotten had it not hosted the opening night of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot 60 years ago.
The little Parisian theatre was to shut shortly after that opening night but Godot went on to become a huge success. It, along with other works, earned its author a Nobel Prize and is seen as a key work of 20th century theatre. That is quite a feat when you consider that reviewer Vivian Mercier famously wrote that Beckett had “…written a play in which nothing happens, twice.”
